Hanns Eislers Art Songs Arguing With Beauty

Best Known For His Collaborations With Bertolt Brecht, Composer Hanns Eisler Also Set Nineteenth-century German Poetry To Music That Both Absorbs And Disturbs The Lieder Tradition. This Book Traces Eislerrsquo;s Art Songs (german: Kunstlieder) Through Twentieth-century Political Crises From World War I To Nazi-era Exile And From Eislerrsquo;s Postwar Deportation From The United States To The Ideological Pressures He Faced In The Early German Democratic Republic. His Art Songs Are Presented Not As An Escape From The Dark Timesrdquo; Brecht Lamented But Rather As A Way To Intervene In The Nationalist Appropriation Of Aesthetic Material.the Book Follows A Chronological Arc From Eislerrsquo;s Early Morgenstern Songs To His Lied-like Setting Of Brechtrsquo;s 1939 To Those Who Come Afterrdquo; And His Treatment Of Houml;lderlinrsquo;s Poetry In The 1940s Hollywood Songbook; The Final Two Chapters Focus On Eislerrsquo;s Goethe Settings In The Early Gdr, Followed By His Late Serious Songs Recalling Brahms In Their Reflective Approach.