F sharp with overtones
F sharp with overtones is a radio play by Günter Eich , which was broadcast on July 1, 1951 by SDR under the direction of Cläre Schimmel .
content
In London, a patient goes to a doctor because she keeps hearing horrific sounds. The medic knows. Countless Londoners hear this little F sharp with overtones . Towards the end of the consultation the doctor hears it too. Renowned London acousticians are asked from government circles for a reassuring explanation of the phenomenon. The three professors concerned do not know what to do next; do not want to accept nuclear tests , signals from a radio amateur , scare tactics from the Eastern bloc , an extraterrestrial source or a renewed repression of capitalism as a cause. The scientists construct a cause that they themselves do not believe in: the phenomenon has its origin in the stratosphere . Parliament is discussing measures against the evil: the constant howling of the London air raid sirens should drown out the little F sharp. That deeply urgent tone is - as a preacher in Hyde Park would have Londoners believe - the trumpet of the Last Judgment . Günter Eich introduces the London tinnitus patient Mildred, the beggar, the farmer couple Bessie and James, the stranger and Evelyne: During the doomsday mood that spreads around the Thames because of the intrusive tone , Mildred now confesses to her spouses, she cheated on him for twelve long years. The horned one takes it calmly. That was forever. The adulterer has already been dead for fifteen years. Suddenly the beggar can buy a car by paying in installments, because the people in the rich neighborhood give more and more willingly than at normal times. In the country, Bessie and James sell their farms for a stick of cardboard. For the British, the end of the world means the island being flooded. Before the cod swims over English soil, the rural couple wants to stay in safe France. The stranger at the Thames estuary books seats for his family in Noah's Ark, which a certain Mr. Willcox has built. Evelyne crosses the canal with Petterson towards Calais . She left her husband in London. Suddenly she finds her childhood sweetheart Petterson attractive. Petterson turns around. The lover escapes from Evelyne to Dover .
One day the F sharp tone will no longer bother Londoners. Mildred confesses to her husband that she has not betrayed him at all. In her fear of the end of the world, she just fantasized about it. The husband doesn't believe her and wants to get a divorce. The rich are no longer willing to spend. The beggar does not know how to raise the car rates from now on. Bessie and James are dumbfounded without any farm land. Willcox withholds the stranger's fare for Noah's Ark. Everything has its price; also the escape from fate.
The preacher persuades the Londoners in Hyde Park that the tone is still there. Man has only got used to how he got used to sin.
shape
The quite numerous figures unsettle the listener who wants to keep track of things.
production
- July 1, 1951, SDR: Directed by Cläre Schimmel, music: Otto Erich Schilling . It spoke Lola Müthel the patient, Egon Clauder the doctor, Gerd Fricke , Karl Bockx and Kurt hair , the three professors, Kurt Norgall the parliament (State Secretary), Harald Baender the preacher, Irma Schwab, the Mildred and Max Mairich the beggar.
- The radio play was repeated on August 27, 1952 and August 9, 1959 in SDR 1 and taken over by RB (August 26, 1952), SWF (December 14 and 18, 1954) and NDR (July 4, 1973).
reception
- Some details and references to meetings can be found at Wagner.
literature
Used edition
- Günter Eich: F sharp with overtones. A Grotesque Game (1951) . P. 475–512 in: Karl Karst (Ed.): Günter Eich. The radio plays I. in: Collected works in four volumes. Revised edition. Volume II . Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1991, without ISBN
Secondary literature
- Sigurd Martin: The auras of the word-image. Günter Eich's mole poetics and the theory of inadvertent reading. Dissertation University of Frankfurt am Main 1994. Röhrig Universitätsverlag, St. Ingbert 1995 (Mannheimer Studien zur Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft, Vol. 3), ISBN 3-86110-057-6
- Hans-Ulrich Wagner: Günter Eich and the radio. Essay and documentation. Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, Potsdam 1999, ISBN 3-932981-46-4 (publications of the German Broadcasting Archive ; Vol. 27)
annotation
- ↑ Suicides are increasing. The beds in the madhouses are not enough. The sick leave rate in London is increasing worryingly. (Edition used, p. 492 center)