Hanns Eisler - Klingende Dokumente I (NOVA, 1974)



Hanns Eisler on the meaning of music:"Someone who knows only music, understands nothing about it."

Some composers may have tried to escape the upheavals of their century through the illusion of "pure music," but not Hanns Eisler. His lifelong conviction was that music should not be subjective but objective, not obscure but transparent, not metaphysical but grounded in history. Eisler's art held up a mirror to the revolutionary hopes and bitter disappontments of his generation - a generation that witnessed two world wars, the rise and fall of empires, an age of revolutions.


"A composer knows," Eisler wrote on the eve of his expulsion from the United States, "that music is written by human beings for human beings and that music is a continuation of life, not something separated from it."

The album "Klingende Dokumente I" was released on the label NOVA (catalog number 8 85 039) in 1974. It contains vocal music with various performers, including Hanns Eisler, and interviews with the composer.

Tracklist:

Side 1:
01. Anmut sparet nicht noch Mühe (Vocals: Hanns Eisler)
02. Das Lied im Kampfe geboren (Interview with Hanns Eisler, December 1957)
03. Ohne Kapitalisten geht es besser (Vocals: Gisela May)
04. Über die Dummheit in der Musik (Interview with Hanns Eisler by Hans Bunge, September 1961)
05. Die haltbare Graugans (Vocals: Hanns Eisler and Irmgard Arnold, recorded in 1958)

Side 2:
01. Handwerkliches Können und Höhe der Musik (Interview with Hanns Eisler by Nathan Notowicz, March 1958)
02. Die Ballade vom Wasserrad (Vocals: Hanns Eisler, recorded 1958)
03. Über Brecht (Interview with Hanns Eisler by Hans Bunge, May 1958)
04. Begegnungen mit einem Literaturindustriellen (Interview with Hanns Eisler by Hans Bunge, May 1958)
05. Lied von der belebenden Wirkung des Geldes (Vocals: Hanns Eisler, recorded 1958)

Hanns Eisler - Klingende Dokumente I (NOVA, 1974)
(192 kbps, cover art included)