Hanns Eisler - Historic Recordings - Historische Aufnahmen

This album really is a collector’s item: These recordings of Brecht/Eisler political songs from the Weimar years have documentary character and value. They are sung by Ernst Busch, along with an early 50s recording by the Berliner Ensemble of the songs from Brecht’s “Die Mutter”.

Among other things, they chronicle what was special about the aspect of Hanns Eisler´s composing that had clearly emerged since 1928 as the new fabric of “Kampfmusik” (“battle music”): In the genre of politically operational songs and ballads; in the genre of new-style film scores, such as that to “Kuhle Wampe”, for which the “Solidaritätslied” (“Song Of Solidarity”) was composed; in the genre of scores for the “epic theatre”, for the historically new type of didactic piece by Bertolt Brecht, and in the genre of the “Wiegenlieder” (“Cradle Songs”) – the attempt to renew a traditonal, highly simple form of vocal popular music by direct reference to the contemporary socio-political awareness of opposition.

The present recordings primarily chronicle the specific manner in which this compositional practice, new at that time, was interpreted. They let us hear and sense how much the incomparable delivery of the great actor and singer Ernst Busch helped shape the form of “battle music”. What is more, the songs and ballads were accompanied at the piano by Eisler in countless performances or rehearsed and conducted by the composter himself fro gramophone recordings by “Homocord” in Berlin around 1930. By the way, the Homocord recording of the “Lied der Baumwollpflücker” (“Song of the cotton pickers”) won first prize at the Leipzig Gramophone Exhibiton at the beginning of 1931. Hanns Eisler also played an active part in rehearsing his music for the performance of Brecht´s stage play “Die Mutter” (“The Mother”) in 1951. Accordingly, there is every justification for describing the recordings of this album as “authentic”.

Hanns Eisler - Historic Recordings (new link)
(256 kbps, front & back cover included)