HOMMAGE TO HANNS EISLER WITH HK GRUBER
Hanns Eisler Septet Nr. 2 Circus (1947)
Heiner Goebbels Lieder from Eisler works (1998)
Hanns Eisler Suite for Orchester Nr. 3 op. 26 (1931/63)
Conductor, chansonnier HK Gruber
Heiner Goebbels talking to this evening's host Ueli Wiget
Portraits of contemporary composers and outstanding 20th century works have been indespensible ingredients in Happy New Ears workshop concerts since they began in 1993. One of these is the Austrian composer Hanns Eisler (1898–1962). A pupil of Schönberg - and later his antagonist, best known for his work with Bertolt Brecht, which began in the 1930s when he composed music for Brecht's The Measures Taken and adaptation of Gorki's The Mother. A committed communist, he began by dedicating himself to working class combative songs and conducting large scale workers' choruses. He also put on, and composed for, workers' symphony concerts; on February 11, 1934, in Vienna, a day before fighting between the Austrofascists and “Red Vienna” put an end to such activities, and the corporative state was proclaimed. The programme included Eisler's Orchestral suite Nr. 3, which drew on motifs from Brecht's film Die kuhle Wampe. He wrote music for many films while in exile in Hollywood, including Charlie Chaplin's Circus. The FBI had him under surveillance and he was summoned to appear before the “Non-American Activities Committee” (which led to his expulsion from America). Eisler, no longer able to perform this music, later incorporated it into his Septet No. 2. One musician who, by his own account, was inspired to compose by Eisler, was Heiner Goebbels, who pays a touching tribute to his role model in the work being performed this evening. HK Gruber, himself a composer and, like Goebbels, previously profiled in *Happy New Ears*, interprets songs from this collection in his own inimitable way, and conducts the concert.
