Serious Songs
[Bar,str orch] 1961/62 duration: 15'
Description
The cycle for baritone solo and string orchestra “Ernste Gesänge” (Serious Songs) is a work which Eisler began in early 1961 and completed in August 1962. In this work, which was his last (Eisler died on September 6), both the choice and arrangement of the lyrics and the selection of musical approaches give a fairly concentrated idea of the exceptional stylistic breadth which is so characteristic of this important 20th century composer while remaining quite distinct from later “postmodern” pluralism. The texts and musical structures, so varied in origin and application, are held together by Eislers underlying political convictions – here related to the stunning revelations of the 20th Party Congress of the CPSU – to which Eisler was the only GDR composer to make an explicit response! and the increased hope of a human aspect to Communism.Talking to Hans Bunge on August 14, 1962, Eisler reported: “Arranging the songs took me the most trouble. It took me a year to put seven little pieces into shape.” Asked for the meaning of this shape, he said: “It is: consciousness – reflection – depression – revival – and again consciousness ... It just must be done that way, otherwise it is not good. One cannot always write optimistic songs ...one must describe the up and down of the actual situations, sing about it and comment on it.” For this purpose Eisler used Hoelderlin fragments which he had already set (“Asyl” (refuge) 1939; “An die Hoffnung” (to hope) 1943) and a text by Bertolt Viertel, written in 1936 to mark the years of Hitlers dictatorship and already set to music as “Chanson allemande” in 1953. Now included in the cycle, “Traurigkeit” (sadness) received a new meaning. Eisler noted: “... now each may seek out the anniversaries that make him sad.” The third song “Verzweiflung” (despair), to an old text by the Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi, set for singing voice and piano by Eisler in 1953 as “Faustus Verzweiflung” (Fausts despair), also received a new status in the cycle: “I need the deep starting-point to jump high” – or to raise hopes. The title of the fifth song, “XX. Parteitag”, was chosen by Eisler himself. Taking a few lines from a poem by Helmut Richter, he had headed them:
DV 1089
score
EAN: 9790200410082
28 pages / 23 x 30.5 cm / 139 g / stapled
DV 6089
piano vocal score
EAN: 9790200464993
28 pages / 23 x 30.5 cm / 134 g / stapled
MM 2715222
hire material
Description
Description
Table of contents
| Vorspiel und Spruch | (Friedrich Hölderlin) | |
| 1. | Asyl | (Hölderlin-Fragment) |
| 2. | Traurigkeit | (Berthold Viertel) |
| 3. | Verzweiflung | (Giocomo Leopardi) |
| 4. | An die Hoffnung | (Hölderlin-Fragment) |
| 5. | XX. Parteitag | (nach einem Gedicht von Helmut Richter) |
| 6. | Komm ins Offene, Freund! | (Hölderlin-Fragment) |
| 7. | Epilog | (Stephan Hermlin) |