Hanns EISLER (1898-1962)
Leipzig Symphony (reconstructed and completed by Tilo Medek) [19:37]
Funeral Pieces of Motion Picture Scores (arr. Jürgen Bruns and Tobias Faßhauser) [13:33]
Night and Fog [30:19]
MDR-Sinfonieorchester Leipzig
Kammersymphonie Berlin/Jürgen Bruns
rec. 2015/18, MDR, Leipzig; Berlin, Konzerthaus, Kleiner Saal
CAPRICCIO C5368 [63:29]
My introduction to the music of the German composer Hanns Eisler, came through Decca’s poignant and wonderful Entarte series and their recording of his Deutsche Sinfonie Op.50 (448 389-2), since then my collection of his music has grown somewhat, and now features recordings of most aspects of his music. An ideal starting point for anyone trying to get to know the composer is the Brilliant Classics Hanns Eisler Edition (9430), which offers a wide variety of music in its ten-disc collection, mainly licensed from Berlin Records, well worth tracking down if you can. There has also been many fine individual releases, of which the MDG series dedicated to his lieder, which so far is very fine indeed, also Capriccio have offered the listener a number of excellent discs mainly centred around his film music of which this release is the latest.
Eisler, in his desire to bring his film music to the concert hall, began to compile it as a symphony but died before he could complete it.
Here it is in a performing version by Tilo Medek, who has not only edited and reconstructed what he could from Eisler’s original, but also had to compose extra music himself, with the result being both interesting and exhilarating. A episodic work, it opens with an impressive and powerful flourish, this driven music soon gives way to a more Mahlerian section before moving into a short section of calmer music, before a march that would once again be out of place in a Mahler symphony, heralds a brief return to the opening music and the run in to the conclusion of the first movement. This episodic feel is typical of the Leipzig Symphony, with Tilo Medek making the most of Eisler’s original film music to produce this work which concludes with a quasi-humorous final movement Marsch ohne Wrote.
This is followed by the Trauerstücke aus Filmpartituren, a set of nine short funeral pieces which Eisler composed in the early 1960’s and is here in arrangement by Jürgen Bruns and Tobias Faßhauser from 2015. There is some really good music here, but I found myself craving that most of the pieces were given more time to develop. These are followed by what is undoubtedly the finest work on this disc, his original film score for Nuit et brouillard, or Night and Fog from 1956. The film is an influential French documentary that deals with the horrors of war and in particular the Nazi death camps. The director, Alain Resnais, shot footage of the camps as they were in 1955 and intersperse them with period footage, with the film lasting just over 30 minutes, whilst calling for Eisler to compose a score that lasted nearly as long. The full score is presented here, it consists of thirteen contrasting pieces which highlight different aspects of the film, it is well worth pulling it up on the internet, with the sardonic representation of Deutschland, Deutschland über alles being quite menacing yet comic. There is also some wonderfully tender and sympathetic music for the depiction of those in the camps, with the final Andante – Largo accompanying the section of the film which is a perfect indictment of man’s inhumanity to man. It is through watching the film that you become aware how indebted Carl Davis and the team behind The World at War were to Alain Resnais and Hanns Eisler.
The performances by both the MDR-Sinfonieorchester Leipzig in the first two works, and the Kammersymphonie Berlin in Night and Fog, all under the direction of Jürgen Bruns, are excellent. Both orchestras are on top form with the excellent recorded sound and the wonderful booklet notes helping to bring out the best from this music. A
very fine disc, one which will enhance any collection of Hanns Eisler’s music and of late twentieth century music as a whole.
Stuart Sillitoe
