Life in this time

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Life in this time is a radio play by Erich Kästner with music by Edmund Nick from 1929.

radio play

On December 14, 1929, the Lyrische Suite was premiered in three movements as a radio play by the Schlesische Funkstunde in Breslau . Kästner assembled poems, some of which had already been published, a choir, noises and interludes to create a collage , for which Edmund Nick composed the music. The director of the station, Friedrich Bischoff, directed . Speakers were (among others) Käte Nick-Jaenicke and Ernst Busch .

Emergence

When Erich Kästner auditioned with the manuscript in Breslau, people were quickly enthusiastic, especially Edmund Nick, who had headed the music department of the Silesian Radio Hour in Breslau since 1924. Together with the literary director of the station, Friedrich Bischoff, he tried to revive the new medium of radio with new forms. The manuscript, which was experimental for its time, is accepted and the search for a suitable composer is started. Kurt Weill was supposed to set it to music, but he waved him off, swimming on the wave of success of his “ Threepenny Opera ” and already working on “The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny ”. But since Kurt Weill had heard Edmund Nick's song settings, he said: "Nick, do it!", As Edmund Nick's daughter, the poet Dagmar Nick , will later report. The original broadcast was a great success; other radio stations were quick to replay the radio play. “Life in this time” became a successful piece in the following years, on the radio and, due to its great success, soon also in the concert hall (for the first time in the Konzerthaus in Vienna on January 18, 1931) and dramatized on over 30 stages (for the first time on October 16, 1931 in Leipzig ). - "Life in this time" is Kästner's most successful dramatic text until the National Socialists forbid its authors in 1933 and burn their works .

Synopsis

The play deals in an associative way with the life of the "average person Schmidt", whereby city and country, modernity and tradition are critically contrasted. “Living in this time” has no actual action. Song-like chansons with their poetic imagery and the genre-typical strong concentration on the text message cover the multitude of critical and satirical topics and changing moods. The authors were not sure about the generic name either, this attempt was so new. What was performed and printed as the “Lyrical Suite in Three Movements” they also called a radio play, an amateur oratorio or a cantata. Characterizing the content, Kästner recorded in the program booklet of the Altona City Theater in 1931: “You will hardly want to call our cantata pious. It is an amateur cantata. It addresses the people of the big city, it brings their own kind to face and hearing, it demonstrates their worries, their futile desires and their methods to master the 'life in this time', however difficult it is bearable. "

People:

Speaker (baritone)
Schmidt (baritone)
Chansonets (soprano)
1. Female voice (speaker)
2. Female voice (speaker)
1. Male voice (speaker)
2. Male voice (speaker)
Men's quartet (tenor, baritone, baritone, bass)
A woman's voice (mezzo-soprano)
A male voice (baritone)
Choir

The individual musical numbers of the radio play are:

  • Little foreplay
  • 1 sentence
introduction
No. 1 Kurt Schmidt, instead of a ballad (speaker)
No. 2 The chanson from the majority (Schmidt, a woman's voice, a man's voice, choir)
No. 3 The small record song (Schmidt, speaker, choir)
No. 4 Das Lied von der Rumpfbeuge (Schmidt, choir)
No. 5 The furnished morality (men's quartet, men's choir)
No. 6 The father's lullaby (Schmidt)
  • 2nd movement
No. 7 Introduction (choir)
No. 8 The Elegy in the Forest (Schmidt, men's quartet, a women's voice)
No. 9 Entrée for a chansonette (speaker)
No. 10 The love song with women's choir (chansonette, women's choir)
No. 11 The Song of the Prodigal Son (Chansonette)
No. 12 The song "One must again ..." (Blues) (Schmidt, 1st and 2nd male voice)
  • 3rd movement
No. 12a Introduction (choir soloists)
No. 13 The song with the pistol shots (Schmidt)
No. 14 Hymn to the Contemporaries (Schmidt, choir)
No. 15 The Chanson for the Highly Born (Chansonette)
No. 16 The appeal to defiance (Schmidt, speaker, choir)
No. 17 The Trumpet Prayer (Choir, Speaker, Schmidt)

From radio play to theater play

After the play's great success, Nick and Kästner rewrote the radio play into a play. The scenic premiere took place on October 16, 1931 in the Old Theater in Leipzig . Until 1932 the play had numerous performances on stages in German-speaking countries. In 1933 the performance of the play was banned by the National Socialists . After the Second World War , the piece was only performed occasionally.

criticism

“On the other hand, the pioneer of radio art, Artistic Director FW Bischoff, Breslau, achieved a complete victory as a radio artist on March 12th with the radio play“ Life in this time ”by Erich Kästner. Radio play in this case: orchestra, sung songs, spoken poems, speaking voices, speaking choir. Everything is splendidly woven together, clear, almost syllable for syllable, compelling, gripping through the unity of the radio presentation; an invention that cleverly melted a large number of serious poems into one long, gripping scene; a music that not only perfectly accompanied and carried the whole thing, but even had its own strong expressive value (composed by Edmund Nick!). The whole thing, as we believe, the first complete victory in the struggle for broadcasting art, in terms of content a deeply serious, genuinely poetic, fully modern revue about the meaning and value of the present life of average people. To repeat! Yes repeat! And then further attempts! "(Volkszeitung Dresden, mid-March 1931)

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Dubbing

On the occasion of Erich Kästner's 100th birthday, life during this time was staged as a radio play at the Münchner Kammerspiele . Directed by Carsten Dane and Christopher Blenkinsop , who also wrote the music.

Recordings

In 2010 the CPO label released a recording of Edmund Nick's "Life in this Time. Lyrical Suite in Three Sentences (1929). Text by Erich Kästner" with Elke Kottmair, Marcus Günzel, Christian Grygas, Walter Niklaus, Peter Ensikat, Ralf Simon, among others. Gerd Wiemer. Ernst Theis directs the choir and orchestra of the Dresden State Operetta . The recording offers both the reconstruction of the radio play version and the music from the concert version.