Bertolt Brecht - Songs, Lieder & Gedichte Vol. 17 - Ernst Busch singt Brecht

"Change the world; it needs it" - this appeal from Bertolt Brecht has lost none of its validity although more than 60 years have passed since his death.

"Brecht can still help people to pose the right questions and he can sometimes provide the right answers", says theatre director Claus Peymann who heads the Berlin Ensemble originally founded by Brecht and his wife Helene Weigel. "How does injustice arise? How can the world be made a better place to live in? Why has armed conflict in the world not come to an end?"

Brecht is the most frequently performed author on the German stage after Shakespeare and the Brothers Grimm. Along with the anti-capitalistic "Threepenny Opera", Brecht's most popular works include "Mother Courage and Her Children" which revolves around war and those who profit from it.
Following his return from American exile in 1948, Brecht, who had concerned himself with Marxism since 1926, chose the German Democratic Republic (GDR) as his new home. He is regarded as the inventor of so-called Epic Theatre which uses unfamiliar techniques in order to establish a critical dialogue with the audience - examples of this are the sudden deviation of an actor from his role or the use of songs and text boards. In this way the human interaction on stage is shown as being conditioned by society which means it can be changed.

25 songs by Bertolt Brecht are collected on this compilation. The music is written by the poet himself, partly by Hans Eisler and by Ernst Busch. Busch is an impressive and brilliant interpreter of these ballads.

Ernst Busch (22 January 1900 - 8 June 1980) was a german singer and actor. He was born in Kiel and died in Berlin.
Busch first rose to prominence as an interpreter of political songs, particularly those of Kurt Tucholsky, in the Berlin cabaret scene of the 1920s. He starred in the original 1928 production of Bertolt Brecht's "Threepenny Opera", as well as the subsequent 1931 film by Georg Wilhelm Pabst.
A lifelong communist, Busch fled Nazi Germany in 1933 with the Gestapo on his heels, eventually settling in the Soviet Union. In 1937 he joined the International Brigades to fight against fascism in Spain. After Spain fell to the Franco, he emigrated to Belgium, where he was interned during the Nazi occupation and later imprisoned in Gurs, France and Berlin. Freed by the Red Army in 1945, he settled in East Berlin, where he worked with Bertold Brecht and Erwin Piscator at the "Berliner Ensemble". A beloved figure in the German Democratic Republic, he is best remembered for his performance in the title role of Brecht's Galileo, and for his stirring recordings of worker's songs, including many written by Hanns Eisler.

Tracklist:

1. Moderne Legende
2. Legende vom toten Soldaten - Sommer 1918
3. Ballade vom Weib und dem Soldaten
4. Gegen Verführung
5. Ein Pferd klagt an
6. Von der Freundlichkeit der Welt - Gegenlied zu: Von der Freundlichkeit der Welt
7. Die Ballade von den Abenteurern
8. Erinnerung an die Marie A.
9. Von den verführten Mädchen
10. Ballade von den Seeräubern
11. Die Ballade von der Hanna Cash
12. Das Lied vom SA-Mann 1931
13. Solidaritätslied
14. Die Ballade vom Baum und den Ästen 1933
15. Einheitsfrontlied
16. In großer Zeit (Rezitation) - BRECHT,BERTOLT
17. Die Krücken 1938
18. Der Kommunismus ist das Mittlere (Rezitation) - BRECHT,BERTOLT
19. Zukunftslied
20. Lob des Kommunismus
21. Das groáe Karthago (Rezitation) - BRECHT,BERTOLT
22. Der anachronistische Zug
23. Aufbaulied
24. Die Pappel vom Karlsplatz
25. Es kommt der Tag
26. Friedenslied

Betrtolt Brecht - Songs, Lieder & Gedichte Vol. 17 - Ernst Busch singt Brecht
(mp3, 192 kbps, front cover included)