Hanns Eisler – Kleine Sinfonie, Kammer-Sinfonie, Orchesterstücke - Magedeburgische Philharmonie, Mathias Husmann

Hanns Eisler´s life and work as a composer had the character of a fundamental aesthetic confrontation with tradition and the world. Even at the age of sixteen, at the outbreak of World War I, Eisler belonged to a student group of antiwar activists - such membership being completely contrary to the trend of the times.

The Small Symphony op. 29 was composed in 1932. For short movements form a sequence of ten minutes in duration. Twelve-tone techniques are employed along with variation forms, contrapuntal elements, and rhytmical-metrical motivic shifts, and all of this creates the impression of a model exhibition.

The other orchestral works recorded here draw on extramusical sources. Eisler teamed up with the revolutionary filmmaker Joris Ivens in 1938. He composed the music for Ivens film about the legendary Long March of the Chinese communists ("Four Hundred Million"). The film music yielded his Five Pieces For Orchestra.

The Chamber Symphony of 1940 is also based on experiments in the area of film music.
The Overture to a Comedy (Nestroy´s "Höllenangst") of 1948 is much more relaxed than the Chamber Symphony. Eisler convices himself, so to speak, of his sovereign command of the light tone animated by ironic usage in the style of quotations.

The recordings on this album feature the Magdeburg Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Mathias Husmann.

Tracks:

Kleine Sinfonie, op.29
Drei Stücke für Orchester
Fünf Orchesterstücke
Kammer-Sinfonie, op.69
Ouverture zu einem Lustspiel

Hanns Eisler – Kleine Sinfonie, Kammer-Sinfonie, etc. - Magedeburgische Philharmonie, Mathias Husmann
(256 kbps, cover art included)