The Song of the Vltava
Das Lied von der Moldau , originally The Times Change , is the posthumous title of a poem by Bertolt Brecht . It was written in August / September 1943 while in exile in the USA and represents a fragment of a Moldau song that Brecht had planned for his piece Schweyk during World War II and into which it was posthumously included. In the setting by Hanns Eisler , the song also gained widespread use outside of its context in the theater play.
The original eight-verse text (beginning with the verse “The times change”) represents the last stanza of the draft of an eight-stanza, but unfinished song that was supposed to be about a Prague saga , according to which the Vltava river bed was involved be filled with the tears of the people. Since Brecht could not find a satisfactory solution for the song, the drafts remained unfinished.
In 1956 Hanns Eisler set the text to music, which he brought into the three-verse form that is common today by dividing the text into two four-verse stanzas and putting the original verses 5 to 8 in front as the first stanza. The editors of the Schweyk play also inserted the text in this form after Brecht's death in the sixth scene in place of the planned Moldau song and in the finale. Eisler's melody is rhythmically based on the theme of the symphonic poem Die Moldau by Bedřich Smetana .
shape
As we know it today, the poem consists of three stanzas with four verses each, the last and first stanzas being identical. The rhyme scheme[abab cdcd abab]enables a smooth transition between the verses. The message of the offense is thus presented rhythmically over the individual verses and stanzas. In contrast, the ending rhyme is exclusively a pure rhyme. Ultimately, this results in a wave movement. The poem is particularly linguistically characterized by its “unaffected imagery”.
interpretation
The song can be concretely understood as a promising proclamation of the imminent end of the National Socialist occupation . However, the poetic power of the poem is still preserved outside of the drama. It can be understood as a parable of the transitoriness of prevailing conditions (“the big doesn't stay big and small doesn't stay the small”) or as “comfort and hope for the weak and inferior”. In addition to Emperor Karl IV , Emperor Ferdinand I , Emperor Maximilian II and Emperor Rudolf II are buried in Prague. It is questionable whether this is an inaccuracy, poetic freedom or deliberate deletion, which is why Brecht names only three emperors. After Franz Brendle , Brecht alludes to Rudolf II of the Habsburg dynasty in the third emperor. The three emperors could also be a reference to the three kings of the Czech resistance.
literature
- Klaus-Dieter Krabiel: Times change . In: Ana Kugli, Michael Opitz (Ed.): Brecht-Lexikon. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2006, ISBN 3-476-02091-6 , p. 109 f. ( limited preview in Google Book search).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Klaus-Dieter Krabiel : Times change . In: Jan Knopf (ed.): Brecht manual. Volume 2: Poems. Metzler, Stuttgart / Weimar 2001, ISBN 3-476-01830-X , pp. 369–372 ( limited preview in the Google book search)
- ↑ a b Walter Hinck: Critical interpretation of history in Brecht's ballads. In: Srdan Bogosavljević (ed.): The German Ballad in the 20th Century. Lang, Bern 2009, ISBN 978-3-03911-628-7 , pp. 69–84, here p. 82 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
- ^ Cf. Franz Brendle: The denominational age . 2nd Edition. de Gruyter, Göttingen 2015, ISBN 978-3-11-042374-7 , p. 167.