Brecht, Music and Culture is a unique, authoritative and illuminating account of the collaboration and friendship between the playwright Bertolt Brecht and the composer Hanns Eisler. Eisler, a Schoenberg pupil and committed Marxist, is one of the great distinctive musical personalities of the twentieth century. He is also one of the most overlooked.
Never a conventional composer, Eisler constantly questioned the role and purpose of music in the tumultuous havoc of the twentieth century. In his conversations with Hans Bunge – which are here published in English for the first time in their entirety – he reflects on his and Brecht’s exile from Nazi Germany and their life in Los Angeles where they numbered among their friends and acquaintances Charlie Chaplin, Arnold Schoenberg, Thomas Mann and Clifford Odets. He discusses a number of Brecht’s principal plays, including Life of Galileo and The Caucasian Chalk Circle, and the place of music in Brecht's own work. Their bruising encounters with the House Committee on un-American Activities are vividly recalled, and, back in post-war Europe, Eisler considers the quality of artistic, political and intellectual life in the German Democratic Republic, the future of the arts as well as the lives of ordinary people.
Hans Bunge, assistant director and dramaturg at the Berliner Ensemble, and, after Brecht’s death director of the newly-created Brecht Archive, recorded a number of conversations with many of those who had known and worked with Brecht. By far the most entertaining and substantial recordings are these fourteen conversations with Brecht’s closest friend and most trusted collaborator. They reflect the entire range of Eisler’s humour, his vivacity, intellect, curiosity and profoundly penetrating political analysis.
Eisler’s dynamic conversational style, depth of thought and sense of mischief, make this book a compelling blend of stimulating ideas, amusing anecdotes and lively gossip.
Biography: Sabine Berendse (below) was born and grew up in Berlin. She read Cultural Studies and German Literature at Leipzig University. Then she worked as Public Relations Assistant in various theatres in Germany until moving with her family to New Zealand in 1994. There she undertook a postgraduate degree in Library and Information Studies. Since 2002 she lives and works as Information Specialist and freelance translator in Cardiff.
Biography: Paul Clements (left) worked as Director of Youth Theatre and Education Services at the Midlands Arts Centre Birmingham. He was subsequently appointed Fellow in Drama at Manchester University and became founding Artistic Director of Contact Theatre Company. Since then he has taught, acted and directed in the UK, Canada and Scandinavia. He was Principal of Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London for twelve years until his retirement in July 2008. Among his publications are The Improvised Play, the first full-length study of the work of the film director, Mike Leigh. In 2002 he was co-winner of The Blue Angel at the Berlin Film Festival for his work on the Danish film, Minor Mishaps, which won the award for Best European Film.
Facebook: Sabine Berendse
Facebook: Paul Clements
Bibliography:
Paul Clements, Teaching Drama, CommCept, Vancouver, 1976
Paul Clements, The Improvised Play, The Work of Mike Leigh,Methuen 1982
Sabine Berendse and Paul Clements (transl.), In Masks the Times Proceeds, Wolfgang Utzt’s Theatre Works, Theater der Zeit, 2010.
Sabine Berendse and Paul Clements (transl.), Oper Leipzig, Theater der Zeit, 2010
Sabine Berendse and Paul Clements (edited and transl.), Brecht, Music and Culture Hanns Eisler in Conversation with Hans Bunge, Bloomsbury, 2014
Links to ebooks:
Brecht, Music and Culture Hanns Eisler in Conversation with Hans Bunge (hard cover)
Brecht, Music and Culture Hanns Eisler in Conversation with Hans Bunge (Paperback)
Pitch to Publishers & Festival Organisers:
To make the presentation of our book more interesting we have taken out entertaining and thought provoking passages from the book and recreated the conversations between the Austrian Composer Hanns Eisler and the Brecht Scholar Hans Bunge. The show includes eight recordings of Eisler’s music in different genres and four are of Eisler singing and accompanying himself at the piano. Rarely seen photographic images of Eisler and others illustrate the performance.
In this multi-media show the audience is taken back to the East Berlin of 1958 when Hans Bunge began the first of his fourteen recorded interviews with the courageous and committed left-wing composer, Hanns Eisler.
The audience is invited to meet Hanns Eisler – played by Paul Clements. Eisler was an enormously intelligent and entertaining conversationalist: sharp, witty, incisive, humorous and lively, and with such a breadth of knowledge and profound understanding of historical processes that it is extraordinarily stimulating to read and hear his words today.
Asking the questions is Hans Bunge whose words are spoken by his daughter, Sabine Berendse. Bunge was one of Bertolt Brecht’s assistants at the Berliner Ensemble and, after the playwright’s death in 1956 Brecht’s widow, Helene Weigel, gave him the responsibility of creating the Brecht Archive.
Brecht, Music and Culture has been performed with great success in Germany, the UK, USA and Canada.
Technical requirements:
Projector, screen, sound system
2 lecterns (or music stands)
1 or 2 stand microphones (or clip-ons)
Windows computer (if that’s not available, we can bring our own laptop; in this case please provide connection lead to projector and sound system)
Contact details:
Sabine Berendse Paul Clements
Ph: +44 29 2071 2125 Ph: +44 29 2041 9914
[sabine_berendse[@]hotmail.com] [apaulclements[@[aol.com]
nb: remove square brackets in email addresses
If you are involved in this festival you can update or change details via the organisers page . Authors can list here.