The Baden lesson on consent
| Data | |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Baden lesson on consent |
| Original title: | Lesson |
| Genus: | Lesson |
| Original language: | German |
| Author: | Bertolt Brecht , Elisabeth Hauptmann , Slatan Dudow |
| Music: | Paul Hindemith |
| Publishing year: | 1930 |
| Premiere: | July 28, 1929 |
| Place of premiere: | Baden-Baden , Festival "German Chamber Music" under the title "Lehrstück" |
| people | |
|
|
Originally lesson titled Baden lesson from the agreement was for the Baden-Baden Festival "German Chamber Music". Paul Hindemith and Bertolt Brecht created the model of the genre of didactic pieces , a new musical-dramatic form that was supposed to eliminate the difference between audience and performers. Laypeople should rehearse the piece or at least sing along for parts.
In terms of content, it is an alternative to the work The Flight of the Lindberghs , which Hindemith, Weill and Brecht had created for the first Atlantic crossing in an airplane. In contrast to the representation of the successful flight, the plane fails here with its three fitters. When he asks people for help, he is turned away and dies. The aviator's death appears as overcoming alienation from the community. It would only be possible to overcome anti-sociality through the painful abandonment of striving for individuality, fame and property. The technical development that manifests itself in flying is examined for its social consequences. The choir repeats several times: “It didn't make bread cheaper.” The triumph of machines doesn't help the little people. "Poverty has increased ..." The need for help is interpreted as an expression of the violent, exploitative conditions. Help and compassion only stabilized social conditions instead of changing them.
The Baden-Baden premiere on July 28, 1929 led to a theatrical scandal , mainly due to the portrayal of death and violence. The audience was initially shocked by the realistic-drastic performance of dying in the dance "Death" by Valeska Gert, shown as a film . But the real scandal was triggered by a brutal clown scene with Theo Lingen in the lead role. Two clowns dismantled a third clown under the pretext of helping. Sore limbs were simply severed using large amounts of theater blood. In the end, the victim was completely dismantled and lay on the floor covered in blood. Not only the audience was shocked, those responsible for Baden-Baden ended their support for the music festival after the performance.
The Baden lesson on consent - content
The version published by Brecht in the series “Attempts”, Das Badener Lehrstücks vom Einhaltnis, extends the text of the premiere. The majority of literary analyzes refer to this version of Brecht, which was not set to music. In contrast, musicology deals almost exclusively with the first edition, to which Hindemith's composition refers. Director Patrick Steckel assessed the two versions on the occasion of a new setting for Deutschlandfunk 2006: “The first version represents an unusually clear criticism for Brecht of the man's mania for coping with nature, a development that has in the meantime brought us into some difficulties . And the second version is basically nothing other than the withdrawal of this criticism. "
The second version of the piece begins with the final section of the Lindbergh dramatization (section 1). In contrast to the illustration of the first Atlantic crossing, the plane fails here with its three fitters. The fallen present themselves as fighters for technical progress.
“ The fallen answer:
Our thoughts were machines and
the struggle for speed.
During the battles we forgot
our names and our faces.
And over the faster departure
we forgot our aim. "
They ask "the crowd" for help. The speaker now announces an investigation into whether “it is customary for man to help man” (Section 2).
Three investigations follow. First, the great discoveries and technical developments that manifest themselves in aviation are examined for their social consequences. The choir repeats several times: “It didn't make bread cheaper.” The triumphs of machines don't help the little people. “Poverty has increased ...” The second study uses 20 photos to demonstrate how brutal people interact with each other. The third exam consists of a clown act. Two circus clowns pretend to help the third clown, Mr. Schmitt. Her recipe: every painful limb is severed. The long scene consists of the brutal dismantling of the clown. At the end of this third “investigation”, “the crowd” draws its conclusion.
"Man does not help man."
They pour out the water from the fallen and take away their pillows. (End of 3rd section) The need for help is interpreted as an expression of the violent, exploitative conditions.
“As long as there is violence, help can be refused.
If there is no more violence, no help is needed.
So you shouldn't ask for help, but abolish violence. "
The aviator and his fitters realize that they will die. (5th section) In the sixth scene, 10 large photos of the dead are shown twice. The fallen cry out. (6th section) In the seventh section the choir reads a commentary on the subject of dying to the fallen. The commentary calls for willingness to die, for "consent" to dying, to the loss of property, and to the fact that everything is changed. The three fitters who crashed with the plane are supposed to “march” against “exploitation and ignorance”. The final roll call emphasizes the demands once again:
“ The learned choir :
Change the world, change yourselves!
Give up!
The leader of the trained choir :
March! "
Lehrstück - the original version
| Differences between the versions | |
|---|---|
| Lehrstück (score by Hindemith) | The Baden lesson on consent |
| Composition: Paul Hindemith | no setting |
| “The fallen” → a single aviator | the aviator and three mechanics |
| 7 sections | 11 sections |
| 1. Report on flying (text identical to the final chorus of Der Flug der Lindberghs with the exception of the final line) | |
| "Without making us forget: the UNREACHABLE" |
"Without making us forget: what has not yet been achieved" |
| 2. The fall (small differences) | |
| 3rd investigation: whether humans help humans |
3. Investigations into whether humans help humans [divided into 3 sections: First investigation: technical development has negative social consequences; second study: 20 photos showing "how people are slaughtered by people"; third investigation: the "clown number"] |
| 4. second investigation: whether humans help humans [clown scene] |
|
| 5. the refusal to help | 4. Refusal to help |
| 6. the expulsion | 5. The advice |
| 7. considers death [dance of death scene , in the world premiere as a projection of a dance by Valeska Gert about dying; the fallen: "I cannot die"] |
6. Viewing the Dead [10 large photos of the dead are shown; The fallen: "We cannot die."] |
| 8. instruction | 7. Reading the commentary texts [Fatzer fragment, death chapter] |
| 9th exam | 8. The exam |
| 9. Fame and dispossession | |
| (In the staging by Steckel, a short interview with Heiner Müller on the subject of pity should be recorded as the 10th section .) | 10. The expulsion |
| 11. The consent | |
Musical design
Hindemith's composition refers to the first version, which was performed under the title Lehrstück . Hindemith tried to keep his composition as open as possible and noted in his score that the size of the orchestra, the instrumentation and the sequence of scenes were variable and also made specific suggestions for alternative line-ups.
Origin and goals
The piece was created as a contribution to the program item “Community Music / Music for Lovers” at the Baden-Baden Music Festival. Bertolt Brecht and the composer Paul Hindemith developed the work in 1929, the extent of the collaboration on the text by Elisabeth Hauptmann and Slatan Dudow may be limited to the creation of the modified version, which was published in 1930 under the title Das Badener Lehrstück vom Konstanz in the second volume of the series "Attempts" appeared in which Brecht documented his theater work. The project is mentioned for the first time in a letter from Paul Hindemith to his publisher: "With Brecht I am planning a kind of folk oratorio for Baden."
One source for the conception of the didactic piece was “community music”, for which a separate program item was set up at the Baden Festival. With the cantata Frau Musica, Hindemith had already had positive experiences with music at the previous year's festival, which the audience participated:
“This music was written neither for the concert hall nor for the artist. It wants to be interesting and modern practice material for people who sing and make music for their own pleasure or who want to play music in a small group of like-minded people. [...] The opening and closing choirs may all those present, for whom the relevant passages have been studied with the help of the notes written on a blackboard, before the start of the performance. "
The musicologist Dominik Sackmann therefore suspects Hindemith to be “the driving force behind the development and training of this new genre”. In the same sense, Joy Haslam Calico describes the didactic piece as a musical genre ("musical genre") that emerged from a countermovement to classical opera, as anti-opera. Even Klaus-Dieter Krabiel believes "that it was Paul Hindemith, who has created the conditions for the lesson as a game type. Without him and without Baden-Baden, Brecht's didactic play would not exist. "
Krabiel sees the common basis of Brecht and Hindemith in the pedagogical orientation, in the "thesis of the community-promoting value of making music". Both were looking for new forms that would break through the classic setting of music theater with its strict separation of performers and audience. The participation of the audience by singing along and the activation of laypeople as performers as well as the openness of the form to improvisation were both seen as essential features of the didactic piece. For Brecht, the audience was even dispensable; the actors should actively work on the desired learning processes.
“This designation only applies to pieces that are instructive for the performers. So you don't need an audience. "
But these core features of the didactic pieces were not implemented consistently either. Calico points out that, even under the direction of Brecht, the didactic pieces were shown to an inactive audience more often than traditional performances with professional musicians. In addition, the music of improvisation and the freedom to perform set narrow limits. The role reversal, one of the elements for generating learning processes in the actors, is also made more difficult by the musical specifications.
But Brecht also brought some musical experience to work with Hindemith. In 1927 he and Kurt Weill presented the "Songspiel" Mahagonny at the Baden-Baden Music Festival , which was based on the Mahagonny chants from Bertolt Brecht's house postil. Due to the success with the Threepenny Opera and the rise and fall of the city of Mahagonny , Brecht was financially independent and was able to think about further developing his theater concepts. Various authors assume that Brecht viewed the tremendous success of the Threepenny Opera with skepticism and, with the didactic piece, was looking for a form that was not so easily absorbed by the cultural scene.
In the Baden-Baden program booklet, Brecht himself states "some theories of a musical, dramatic and political nature that aim at a collective exercise of art" as the basis of the didactic piece . The didactic piece is related to Brecht's Marxism studies insofar as it addresses the social dimension of technical development and the area of tension between the individual and the collective. Brecht emphasizes that the piece is “not even completely finished” and is to be understood as an “experiment” to “enable the authors to understand themselves” and those actively involved.
In terms of content, the teaching piece presents a counter model to the Lindbergh piece . It juxtaposes Charles Lindbergh , the hero of the first Atlantic crossing in an airplane, a failed attempt and the desperation of the plane who crashed, and alludes to Charles Nungesser's failed Atlantic crossing , who died with his copilot. The failed aviator is confronted in the play. The criticism is directed against a blind enthusiasm for technology that does not bring about any social progress. Help is denied to the failed individual because they were unwilling to integrate into the community. Krabiel shows that the Lindbergh play depicts the events of the flight in a “documentary-reportage-like manner”, while the didactic play presents an “abstract-philosophical model”. The fact that the didactic piece is to be understood as a counter-draft is also shown by the adoption of the final chorus from the Lindbergh piece as the opening chorus of the didactic piece.
premiere
Conductors: Alfons Dressel and Ernst Wolff - Director: Bertolt Brecht - Costumes: Heinz Porep
The lyrics of the "crowd" that the audience was supposed to sing were projected onto a screen at the premiere. To support the singing of the audience, there were participants in the audience who had practiced the positions beforehand.
"Hindemith himself conducted" this strange choral society "in which" Gerhart Hauptmann and Joseph Haas , Ernst Toch and André Gide , the Hereditary Prince of Donau-Eschingen and Miss Müller from Rastatt "sang along ( Karl Laux )"
Theo Lingen , actor of the clown who is dismantled, describes the scandal:
“Clown Schmidt was dissatisfied with himself and everything and had constant psychological as well as physical pain, and his two companions, also clowns, advised him to simply cut off all the limbs that ached him. To do that, I was put on stilts. I had extended arms and hands, also a huge head, and could only see something through my chemisette , which was made of gauze. In the course of the piece, all of my limbs were skillfully amputated. I also had to inject the blood with a bellows that contained blood: that was really too much for the audience. And when they saw my head off because I complained of a headache, a scandal broke out that I have never seen again in the theater. Anything that wasn't nailed down flew onto the stage. My teammates fled the scene [...] "
The scandal caused by the premiere of the “Lehrstück” was one of the reasons that those responsible for the city of Baden-Baden no longer supported the chamber music festival, so it took place in Berlin next year.
Further performances and new scoring
Krabiel points out that there were a number of performances of the original version of the didactic play up to 1933 , while Brecht's further development, Das Badener Lehrstück vom Einsichtnis , was only seldom performed since 1959 and then regularly "not realized as a vocal musical work, but misunderstood as a theater piece" . On November 17, 1969, the Berlin Schaubühne on Halleschen Ufer performed the Baden lesson on consent , and in 1970 the Münchner Werkraumtheater of the Münchner Kammerspiele . In 1973 the GDR premiere took place on the rehearsal stage of the Berliner Ensemble. The reviews were rather negative and criticized “intrusive teaching” and “dramaturgy of the raised index finger”.
The radio play director Beate Andres staged in 2004 for the cultural program of the Südwestrundfunk, the SWR2 , the Baden teaching piece of consent . Contributors were Hans Kremer, Katarina Rasinski, Michael Hirsch, Christian Kesten, Tilmann Walzer and Volker Schindel.
The director Patrick Steckel initially planned a production at the Berliner Ensemble for Bertolt Brecht's 100th birthday in 1998. For this purpose, the Cuban Carlos Fariñas composed a new setting, since an initially planned addition to the Hindemith composition failed because of the veto of the Brecht heirs. The basis should be the text of the world premiere, reconstructed from the score. The core of the staging plan, which Steckel developed with the dramaturge Stefan Schnabel, was to be a clear confrontation between the choir on stage and the “crowd”, which was to be represented by almost 100 singers distributed among the audience. According to Günther Heeg, the crowd should not be interpreted as a positive community, but as “full of resentment” and “eaten away with envy”.
The project was realized as a radio play on the 50th anniversary of Bertolt Brecht's death. In 2006, Steckel staged a performance of the original version of the "Lehrstück" with the Ars Nova Ensemble for Deutschlandfunk and a stage version for the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm .
“Patrick Steckel: We're doing a radio production and a concert performance in the Berliner Ensemble at the end of August. The problem was that I would have liked to complete Hindemith's music because the existing music does not refer to the full text, but we did not get permission to complete it. The Hindemith heirs did not mind, but the Brecht heirs. So the way was clear for a new setting and we then worked with a very renowned Latin American composer named Carlos Fariñas . "
grades
- Paul Hindemith: Text of the premiere also in an autograph score from August 1929, Hindemith Institute
- Paul Hindemith (composition); Rudolf Stephan (Hrsg.): Giselher Schubert (Editionsleitung): Score and critical report, Complete Edition Series I: Stage Works - Volume 6, Schott Music, 276 pages, ISMN 979-0-001-12113-2.
- Paul Hindemith (composition): piano reduction, Schott Music, duration: 50 minutes, 52 pages, ISMN 979-0-001-03349-7.
Text output
- Bertolt Brecht: Baden-Baden text from July 1929, printed in the program booklet under the title: "Lehrstück: Fragment"
- Bertolt Brecht: Baden-Baden text from July 1929, printed in: Günther Heeg: Knock from the mausoleum. Brecht training at the Berliner Ensemble , Berlin: Vorwerk 8, 2000
- Paul Hindemith: Text of the world premiere also in an autograph score from August 1929
- Bertolt Brecht: The Baden lesson on consent. in: Experiments, book 2, Berlin (Gustav Kiepenheuer) 1930
- Bertolt Brecht: The Baden lesson on consent, the same text as the experimental version in GBA Volume 3
Secondary literature
- Joy Haslam Calico: Brecht at the Opera. University of California Press, Berkeley 2008, ISBN 978-0-520-25482-4 .
- Bryan Randolph Gilliam (Ed.): Music and Performance during the Weimar Republic. (Cambridge Studies in Performance Practice), Cambridge University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-521-42012-1 .
- Susanne Fischer Quinn: On the use of utility music - Bertolt Brecht's collaboration with Paul Hindemith and Kurt Weill in the Lehrstück and the Jasager. Mercer University, Athens, Georgia 2007. (abstract, PDF)
- Günther Heeg: Knock from the mausoleum. Brecht training at the Berliner Ensemble. Vorwerk 8, Berlin 2000.
- Jan Knopf : Brecht manual. Theater, unabridged special edition. Metzler, Stuttgart 1986, ISBN 3-476-00587-9 .
- Jan button: Brecht manual vol. 1: pieces. Metzler, Stuttgart 2001. (new edition)
- Klaus-Dieter Krabiel : Lesson / The Baden lesson on consent. In: Jan Knopf: Brecht manual. Vol. 1: Pieces. Metzler, Stuttgart 2001. (new edition)
- Klaus-Dieter Krabiel: Brecht's teaching pieces. Creation and development of a game type. Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-476-00956-4 .
- Klaus-Dieter Krabiel: The lesson. Brecht's theory of a political-aesthetic education. Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 3-86099-250-3 .
- Karl Laux : scandal in Baden-Baden. Report from 1929 - Comment from 1972. In: Hindemith-Jahrbuch 1972 / II. Schott, Mainz 1972.
- Joachim Lucchesi, Ronald K. Shull: Music with Brecht. Frankfurt am Main 1988, ISBN 3-518-02601-1 . (On behalf of the Academy of Arts of the GDR)
- Werner Mittenzwei : The Life of Bertolt Brecht or Dealing with the World Riddles. Volume 1, Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-7466-1340-X .
- Klaus-Detlef Müller: Bertolt Brecht: Epoch - Work - Effect. Workbooks on the history of literature. CH Beck, 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-59148-8 .
- Giselher Schubert : Between fronts: Hindemith, Brecht and Benn. In: Dominik Sackmann (ed.): Hindemith interpretations: Hindemith and the twenties. Lang, Berlin et al. 2007, ISBN 978-3-03911-508-2 , pp. 117ff.
- Giselher Schubert: "Hindemith's music hardly disturbs". To Hindemith and Brecht. In: Albrecht Riethmüller (ed.): Brecht and his composers. Laaber Verlag, Laaber 2000, ISBN 3-89007-501-0 , pp. 9-25.
- Reiner Steinweg : didactic play and epic theater. Brecht's theory and theater pedagogical practice. Brandes and Apsel, Frankfurt am Main 1995, ISBN 3-86099-250-3 .
- Reiner Steinweg: The lesson. Brecht's theory of a political-aesthetic education. Metzler, Stuttgart 1976, ISBN 3-476-00352-3 .
- Frank Thomsen, Hans-Harald Müller, Tom Kindt: Ungeheuer Brecht. A biography of his work. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006, ISBN 3-525-20846-4 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Information on the orchestra according to Joachim Lucchesi, Ronald K. Shull: Musik bei Brecht. P. 430.
- ↑ a b GBA vol. 3, p. 30.
- ↑ a b The Ur-Brecht. on: dradio.de , July 8, 2006.
- ↑ GBA vol. 3, p. 29.
- ↑ Text fragment can also be found in Brecht's Fatzer fragment
- ↑ GBA vol. 3, p. 38.
- ↑ GBA vol. 3, p. 45.
- ↑ GBA vol. 3, p. 45.
- ↑ cf. Joachim Lucchesi, Ronald K. Shull: Music with Brecht. P. 433.
- ↑ cf. GBA Volume 3, p. 412; This is not the case with Knopf in the old version of the Brecht Handbook, in which he assumes that Hauptmann and Dudow were involved from the start. P. 75.
- ↑ quoted from: Klaus-Dieter Krabiel: Lehrstück / Das Badener Lehrstück from consent. P. 227.
- ↑ op. 45 No. 1 (January 1928); see. Giselher Schubert : Between fronts: Hindemith, Brecht and Benn. P. 123.
- ↑ Dominik Sackmann: Hindemith interpretations: Hindemith and the twenties. Zurich Music Studies 6, Bern a. a. (Lang) 2008, ISBN 978-3-03911-508-2 , p. 123.
- ↑ cf. Joy Haslam Calico: Brecht at the Opera. P. 17.
- ^ Klaus-Dieter Krabiel. Brecht's didactic pieces. Creation and development of a game type. P. 52.
- ↑ Klaus-Dieter Krabiel: Lehrstück / Das Badener Lehrstück on consent. P. 227.
- ↑ cf. Joy Haslam Calico: Brecht at the Opera. P. 17f.
- ↑ cf. Joy Haslam Calico: Brecht at the Opera. P. 23.
- ↑ cf. Joy Haslam Calico: Brecht at the Opera. P. 23f.
- ↑ z. B. Adorno. “To the music of the 'Threepenny Opera'.” In: Bertolt Brecht's Threepenny Book. Texts, materials, documents, p. 187 .; Joy Haslam Calico: Brecht at the Opera. , P. 5; Susanne Fischer Quinn: From the use of utility music , p. 29ff. u. a.
- ↑ quoted from: GBA 24, p. 90.
- ↑ GBA Volume 24, p. 90.
- ↑ Klaus-Dieter Krabiel: Lehrstück / Das Badener Lehrstück on consent. P. 227.
- ↑ Stephen Hinton: Lehrstück: An Aesthetics of Performance. In: Bryan Randolph Gilliam (Ed.): Music and Performance during the Weimar Republic.
- ↑ cf. Joachim Lucchesi, Ronald K. Shull: Music with Brecht. P. 434.
- ↑ The quotations come from: Karl Laux: Scandal in Baden-Baden. Report from 1929 - Comment from 1972. In: Hindemith-Jahrbuch 1972 / II. Schott, Mainz 1972, p. 171.
- ^ Elizabeth Janik: Recomposing German Music: Politics and Musical Tradition in Cold War Berlin. Studies in Central European Histories. Brill Academic Pub, 2005, ISBN 978-90-04-14661-7 , p. 47.
- ↑ a b Klaus-Dieter Krabiel: Lehrstück / Das Badener Lehrstück on consent. P. 237.
- ↑ Information from Klaus-Dieter Krabiel: Lehrstück / Das Badener Lehrstück from consent. P. 237.
- ↑ SWR2 radio play studio: The Baden lesson on consent. Production: SWR 2004, length: 41 minutes.
- ^ Frank-Patrick Steckel: Note on the teaching piece. In: Günther Heeg: Knock from the mausoleum. Brecht training at the Berliner Ensemble. P. 101.
- ^ Günther Heeg: Knock from the mausoleum. Brecht training at the Berliner Ensemble. P. 124.
- ^ Ars Nova Ensemble under the direction of Sabine Wüsthoff: Bertolt Brecht, Lehrstück, Fragment, Lehrstück! Deutschlandfunk, August 8, 2006, 8:10 p.m.