Eisler, Hanns (1893 - 1962)

[Serial_Apologist]

Three shortish links to works composed in Eisler's very personal adaptation of the 12-tone method, from the mid-1930s, and a neo-tonal one from the final years in E Germany:

The Lenin Requiem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7rBt3gImT8

Cantata on the Death of a Comrade:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4mf3cbkKKo

Cantata in Exile, leading to The Roman Cantata: my personal favourite of this group of Silone settings - a wonderfully satirical take on life under Mussolini:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8bR_NunN0M

The Carpet Weavers of Kujan-Bulak:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T8N9aFH5M8

[RichardB]

Eisler's very personal adaptation of the 2-tone method

That's a method I associate more closely with the Specials.

[Bryn]

That's a method I associate more closely with the Specials.

[Serial_Apologist]

That's a method I associate more closely with the Specials.

Oops!!!



I'll correct that straight away - but please leave your post, and Bryn likewise.

I will try to be more careful... Henze forth.

[Serial_Apologist]

I have just discovered this wonderful website, which offers an exceptionally informative and illuminating portrait of this fascinating figure and the people around him, along with the times and personal circumstances he lived through. It includes a number of clips I had not previously come across - some of which may be hard to listen to in terms of recording quality, but which offer the ring of genuine authenticity. These include mention and clips of film themes. The script attempts to deal with the difficult questions - the composer's ambivalent relations to and with the Comintern, the aesthetics and politics of Socialist Realism, the effects of Zhdanov's edicts in the shaping of his late music and principles. It is particularly strong on the final period, during which Eisler took onto himself the heroic panoply of devising an entirely new musical aesthetic appropriate to the new socialist society he increasingly realised to be a mirage. The views of the writer tend to accord with my own that Eisler's finest output came from his American period, when he seemed freed from pressure to live up to external pressures, apart from the perennial threat of expulsion, which he seemed mentally to have taken on board.

http://forbiddenmusic.org/2014/07/27/the-kaleidoscopic-contradictions-of-hanns-eisler-1898-1962/

As far as I can ascertain, Eisler only ever composed music for one British film, So Well Remembered, of 1947, starring Trevor Howard, John Mills and a very young Hayley Mills. I shall post a link to that on the Movies thread.

[Joseph K]

Three shortish links to works composed in Eisler's very personal adaptation of the 12-tone method, from the mid-1930s, and a neo-tonal one from the final years in E Germany:

The Lenin Requiem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7rBt3gImT8

Cantata on the Death of a Comrade:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4mf3cbkKKo

Cantata in Exile, leading to The Roman Cantata: my personal favourite of this group of Silone settings - a wonderfully satirical take on life under Mussolini:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8bR_NunN0M

The Carpet Weavers of Kujan-Bulak:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7T8N9aFH5M8

Just finished listening to these, at SA's suggestion, except for the third one which is no longer available. Not really my cup of tea - but probably my favourite was the last one, which had something Stravinskyan about it.