Hollywooder songbook

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The Hollywooder songbook is a collection of art songs that Hanns Eisler composed between May 1942 and December 1943 under the impression of life in exile in Santa Monica ( Los Angeles , near Hollywood , California ). In the text (largely by Bertolt Brecht ) and music, desperation and disgust for what is happening in Europe, incomprehension for the opportunists who have stayed in Germany, alienation in a culture that is perceived as unbearably superficial, and a longing for the lost cultural German identity are expressed.

The songbook mostly only has something to do with Hollywood - rather, Eisler wants to counter the “mass dispersion” of the Hollywood aesthetic with “individual concentration” through the form of the art song.

Musically, the work is characterized by a very broad stylistic range. Classical-romantic, impressionistic, expressionistic and free tonal sounds, 12-tone technology and light echoes of light music such as hits or blues stand side by side and are sometimes even interwoven.

Emergence

Eisler's conversations with Hans Bunge gave the impression that Eisler devoted himself to the songbook for reasons of pure pastime in addition to the necessity of daily wage labor. However, Brecht suspected that this was a “modest Bruckner gesture”, which actually intended the opposite.

What is certain is that the “Hollywooder Songbook” is not an organized song cycle, but consists of a series of songs that are put together in a collage-like manner - without any clear content or even narrative red thread like in the great romantic song cycles. Many speak of a kind of musical diary by Eisler (Brecht, Hufschmidt, Roth) .

It is also not possible to determine unequivocally which songs should be included in the songbook. The information varies from 40 songs to 200 songs (Erwin Ratz) . The assignment of the 47 songs below by Eisler researcher Manfred Grabs has largely prevailed. The songs were also not written for a coherent, scheduled public performance; the first performance of the entire songbook did not take place until 1982.

Eisler began work on the collection with settings of Bertolt Brecht's poems written in Scandinavian exile ( Steffin's collection ). This collection is not directly related to exile, but is closely linked to the experiences of an exile due to the history of its creation.

Texts

The text of the songbook is based on poems by various authors. Most of it comes from Bertolt Brecht (28 songs), furthermore it contains six fragments (more or less reworked by Eisler) by Friedrich Hölderlin , the five anacreontic fragments by Eduard Mörike , 2 songs based on words by Blaise Pascal , one poem each by Goethe , Eichendorff , Viertel , Rimbaud and von Eisler himself as well as a song based on words from the Bible.

Relation to tradition of the songbook and position in Eisler's art songs

Eisler's Six Songs op. 2 from 1922 to 1923 - composed during his apprenticeship with Arnold Schönberg - are atonal composed entirely in the spirit of the Second Viennese School . The newspaper clippings op. 11 from 1926 are in an avant-garde tonal language, but through the choice of text Eisler has already moved away from the bourgeois art song (which led to a rebellion with Schönberg). In the following years Eisler wrote almost exclusively socialist combat, workers, agitation and Ä. mass songs. In order to be sung by the crowd, these were of course kept more artistically simple. But with his turning away from the bourgeois concert business, the songs in his cantatas, didactic pieces, etc. Ä. Written in a catchy tonal language.

In exile, Eisler had little opportunity to exert political influence through his music; he turns back to the more intimate genre of the traditional art song for voice and piano. In terms of style, too, it makes surprisingly clear reference to tradition. In not a few songs a classical-romantic tonal language predominates; in “Über den Sumord” the beginning of Schubert's Winterreise is literally set to music. “Spring”, on the other hand, sounds impressionistic - reminiscent of Debussy; the harsh, abrupt closings in many songs have an expressionistic effect ; In many songs, however, Eisler also breaks away from tonality. It remains speculative whether the musical references to tradition are to be interpreted in the sense of neoclassicism or whether it is an expression of Eisler's longing for German culture in American exile. Eisler's other works from exile are less often written in traditional tonal language.

Criticism of Hollywood

With the setting of Brecht's five Hollywood elegies in autumn 1942, Eisler turned more towards the specific circumstances of exile, especially under the circumstances of the Hollywood film industry.

A recurring theme is the situation of the artist and art under the conditions of capitalist production . In the song Under the Green Pepper Trees , for example, the romantic content of the art song with its brooks, mills or even pepper trees form a sudden contrast to the reality of the necessity of producing music as a commodity under capitalism ( Under the green pepper trees - the musicians are on the line ). Eisler used his experience of the exclusive use of art in Hollywood, for example, in the song The City is named after the angels , which relates directly to Los Angeles . Here Eisler used "worn sounds" musically, above all in the form of the sixth-fourth chord, which relates to music that is harmonious and pleasing, and thus in line with the market. On the other hand, the instruction to “deliver with dark lard” makes the seriousness of the situation clear.

Antique covers

The elegy occupies an important position in the collection. It must be said that “elegy” has a different meaning in music and literature. In music, elegies are mostly sentimental or sad to kitschy pieces for melody instrument and piano or for piano solo - often of rather mediocre quality. In the literature, on the other hand, the elegy goes back to an ancient Greek double verse consisting of a hexameter and a pentameter. Later the elegy was also linked to a certain content, which Hegel referred to as "reflective world view". The elegies in Eisler's Hollywooder songbook are elegies in the literary sense, with the topoi mourning and pain being common to both meanings of elegy.

That Eisler was aware of the ancient form of the elegy is also shown by the setting of the anacreontic fragments in the songbook. The (musical) elegy is formally very open. The ancient elegy was always interrelated with social circumstances. The topoi of mourning and pain, which determined the elegy in later reception, also proved to be suitable. Both aspects reflect important contents and characteristics of the Hollywooder songbook .

List of songs

As part of Ana Torfs' Internet art project “Approximations / Contradictions”, realized by the “ Dia Art Foundation ”, videos of 21 songs from the Hollywooder songbook (by 21 different singers, each recorded in 3 different versions) can be heard online.

  • 1. The son (Brecht)
    • I. "When she lay and thought at night"
    • II. "My young son asks me"
  • 2. In the pastures (Brecht)
  • 3. To the little radio (Brecht)
  • 4th spring (Brecht)
  • 5.Larder 1942 (Brecht)
  • 6. On the run (Brecht)
  • 7. About suicide (Brecht)
  • 8. The escape (Brecht)
  • 9. Memorial plaque for 4000 soldiers who were sunk in the war against Norway (Brecht)
  • 10. Epitaph on someone who died in the Battle of Flanders (Brecht)
  • 11th saying (Brecht)
  • 12th tank battle (Brecht)
  • 13th Easter Sunday (Brecht)
  • 14. The cherry thief (Brecht)
  • 15. Hotel room 1942 (Brecht)
  • 16. The Mask of Evil (Brecht)
  • 17. Two songs based on words by Pascal
    • I. "Despite these miseries"
    • II. "The only thing"
  • 18. Winter saying (Brecht)
  • 19. Five elegies ("Hollywood elegies") (Brecht)
    • I. "Under the green pepper trees"
    • II. "The city is named after the angels"
    • III. "Every morning to earn my bread"
    • IV. "This city taught me"
    • V. "Gold is found in the hills"
  • 20. The last elegy (Brecht)
  • 21. L'automne california / California autumn (Berthold Quarter)
  • 22. Anacreontic fragments (Mörike after Anakreon)
    • I. Concerning socializing
    • II. "Longing for your homeland was deadly for you too"
    • III. The dignity of aging
    • IV. Later triumph
    • V. In the morning
  • 23. Memory of Eichendorff and Schumann (Eichendorff)
  • 24. Holderlin fragments
    • I. To hope
    • II. Keepsake.
    • III. Elegy 1943
    • IV. The home
    • V. To a city
    • VI. memory
  • 25. Man (Bible verses)
  • 26. About sprinkling the garden (Brecht)
  • 27. The homecoming (Brecht)
  • 28. The landscape of exile (Brecht)
  • 29. Rimbaud poem
  • 30. The treasure digger (Goethe)
  • 31. Nightmare (Hanns Eisler)
  • 32nd Hollywood Elegy No. 7 (Brecht)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Booklet for CD DECCA 460 582-2.
  2. ↑ Conversations with Hans Bunge (Eisler: Gesammelte Werke, Vol. 7), p. 14 ff.
  3. ^ Brecht: Arbeitsjournal, October 3, 1942.
  4. ↑ Eisler: Gesammelte Werke, Vol. 1, p. 408.
  5. ^ According to Hufschmidt, 1993, p.159 f.
  6. ↑ Sarah Tucker: Ana Torfs, Approximations / Contradictions (on Dia Art Foundation) , English, accessed December 28, 2019.

literature

  • Claudia Albert: "The difficult craft of hope". Hanns Eisler's "Hollywooder Liederbuch". Stuttgart 1991.
  • Wolfgang Hufschmidt Do you want to twist your lyre to my songs? On the semantics of musical language in Schubert's "Winterreise" and Eisler's "Hollywood songbook". Dortmund 1986.
  • Hanns Eisler: Conversations with Hans Bunge. Leipzig 1975 (EGW 7).
  • Markus Roth: Singing as Asylum, analytical studies on Hanns Eisler's "Hollywood songbook". Hofheim 2006.

Recordings

  • Mathias Goerne - baritone, Eric Schneider - piano, DECCA 460 582-2, "Degenerate Music" series, 1998.
  • Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau - baritone, Aribert Reimann - piano, label: Teldec (Warner).
  • Irmgard Arnold - mezzo-soprano, label: Berlin Cla (noble).
  • Roswitha Trexler - mezzo-soprano, Jutta Czapski - piano, label: Bc (edel).
  • Wolfgang Holzmair - vocals, Peter Stamm - piano, label: Koch Class.
  • "Despite Eisler", Anna von Schrottenberg - vocals, Christian Rösli - Wurlitzer / Electronics, Luca Leobruni - double bass, Polyphenia, LC 05052, 2006.