birth date	February 10, 1898
birth place	Augsburg, German Empire
death date	August 14, 1956
death place	Mitte, East Berlin, East Germany
occupation	Playwright, theatre director, poet
genre	Non-Aristotelian dramaEpic theatre Dialectical theatre
spouse	Marianne Zoff (1922–1927)Helene Weigel (1930–1956)
notableworks	''The Threepenny Opera''''Life of Galileo''''Mother Courage and Her Children''''The Good Person of Szechwan''''The Caucasian Chalk Circle''''The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui''
children	Frank Banholzer (1919–1943),Hanne Hiob (1923–2009),Stefan Brecht (1924–2009),Barbara Brecht-Schall (born 1930)
influences	Georg BüchnerAlfred DöblinFrank WedekindKarl ValentinErwin PiscatorVsevolod MeyerholdMéi LánfāngKarl MarxKarl KorschBible
influenced	Walter BenjaminLouis AlthusserRoland BarthesDario FoAugusto BoalJoan LittlewoodW. H. AudenPeter BrookPeter WeissHeiner MüllerPina BauschPeter HacksTony KushnerCaryl ChurchillJohn ArdenHoward BrentonEdward BondDavid HareArmand GattiSan Francisco Mime TroupeTeatro CampesinoThe Wooster GroupThe Living TheatreJosef SzeilerJean-Luc GodardGlauber RochaManoel de OliveiraLindsay AndersonRainer Werner FassbinderJoseph LoseyNagisa OshimaRitwik GhatakLars von TrierJan BucquoyHal Hartley
Signature	Brecht Unterschrift.jpg }}

Bertolt Brecht (; born ; 10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956) was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.

An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the Berliner Ensemble – the post-war theatre company operated by Brecht and his wife, long-time collaborator and actress Helene Weigel.

Life and career

Bavaria (1898–1924)

Bertolt Brecht was born in Augsburg, Bavaria, (about 50 miles (80 km) north-west of Munich) to a conventionally-devout Protestant mother and a Catholic father (who had been persuaded to have a Protestant wedding). His father worked for a paper mill, becoming its managing director in 1914. Thanks to his mother's influence, Brecht knew the Bible, a familiarity that would impact on his writing throughout his life. From her, too, came the "dangerous image of the self-denying woman" that recurs in his drama. Brecht's home life was comfortably middle class, despite what his occasional attempt to claim peasant origins implied. At school in Augsburg he met Caspar Neher, with whom he formed a lifelong creative partnership, Neher designing many of the sets for Brecht's dramas and helping to forge the distinctive visual iconography of their epic theatre.

When he was 16, the First World War broke out. Initially enthusiastic, Brecht soon changed his mind on seeing his classmates "swallowed by the army". On his father's recommendation, Brecht sought a loophole by registering for an additional medical course at Munich University, where he enrolled in 1917. There he studied drama with Arthur Kutscher, who inspired in the young Brecht an admiration for the iconoclastic dramatist and cabaret-star Wedekind.

From July 1916, Brecht's newspaper articles began appearing under the new name "Bert Brecht" (his first theatre criticism for the ''Augsburger Volkswille'' appeared in October 1919). Brecht was drafted into military service in the autumn of 1918, only to be posted back to Augsburg as a medical orderly in a military VD clinic; the war ended a month later.

In July 1919, Brecht and Paula Banholzer (who had begun a relationship in 1917) had a son, Frank. In 1920 Brecht's mother died.

Some time in either 1920 or 1921, Brecht took a small part in the political cabaret of the Munich comedian Karl Valentin. Brecht's diaries for the next few years record numerous visits to see Valentin perform. Brecht compared Valentin to Chaplin, for his "virtually complete rejection of mimicry and cheap psychology". Writing in his ''Messingkauf Dialogues'' years later, Brecht identified Valentin, along with Wedekind and Büchner, as his "chief influences" at that time: :But the man he [Brecht writes of himself in the third person] learnt most from was the clown ''Valentin'', who performed in a beer-hall. He did short sketches in which he played refractory employees, orchestral musicians or photographers, who hated their employers and made them look ridiculous. The employer was played by his partner, a popular woman comedian who used to pad herself out and speak in a deep bass voice.

Brecht's first full-length play, ''Baal'' (written 1918), arose in response to an argument in one of Kutscher's drama seminars, initiating a trend that persisted throughout his career of creative activity that was generated by a desire to counter another work (both others' and his own, as his many adaptations and re-writes attest). "Anyone can be creative," he quipped, "it's rewriting other people that's a challenge." Brecht completed his second major play, ''Drums in the Night'', in February 1919.

In 1922 while still living in Munich, Brecht came to the attention of an influential Berlin critic, Herbert Ihering: "At 24 the writer Bert Brecht has changed Germany's literary complexion overnight"—he enthused in his review of Brecht's first play to be produced, ''Drums in the Night''—"[he] has given our time a new tone, a new melody, a new vision. [...] It is a language you can feel on your tongue, in your gums, your ear, your spinal column." In November it was announced that Brecht had been awarded the prestigious Kleist Prize (intended for unestablished writers and probably Germany's most significant literary award, until it was abolished in 1932) for his first three plays (''Baal'', ''Drums in the Night'', and ''In the Jungle'', although at that point only ''Drums'' had been produced). The citation for the award insisted that: :"[Brecht's] language is vivid without being deliberately poetic, symbolical without being over literary. Brecht is a dramatist because his language is felt physically and in the round." That year he married the Viennese opera-singer Marianne Zoff. Their daughter—Hanne Hiob (1923–2009)—was a successful German actress.

In 1923, Brecht wrote a scenario for what was to become a short slapstick film, ''Mysteries of a Barbershop'', directed by Erich Engel and starring Karl Valentin. Despite a lack of success at the time, its experimental inventiveness and the subsequent success of many of its contributors have meant that it is now considered one of the most important films in German film history. In May of that year, Brecht's ''In the Jungle'' premiered in Munich, also directed by Engel. Opening night proved to be a "scandal"—a phenomenon that would characterize many of his later productions during the Weimar Republic—in which Nazis blew whistles and threw stink bombs at the actors on the stage.

In 1924 Brecht worked with the novelist and playwright Lion Feuchtwanger (whom he had met in 1919) on an adaptation of Christopher Marlowe's ''Edward II'' that proved to be a milestone in Brecht's early theatrical and dramaturgical development. Brecht's ''Edward II'' constituted his first attempt at collaborative writing and was the first of many classic texts he was to adapt. As his first solo directorial début, he later credited it as the germ of his conception of "epic theatre". That September, a job as assistant dramaturg at Max Reinhardt's Deutsches Theater—at the time one of the leading three or four theatres in the world—brought him to Berlin.

Weimar Republic Berlin (1925–33)

In 1923 Brecht's marriage to Zoff began to break down (though they did not divorce until 1927). Brecht had become involved with both Elisabeth Hauptmann and Helene Weigel. Brecht and Weigel's son, Stefan, was born in October 1924.

In his role as dramaturg, Brecht had much to stimulate him but little work of his own. Reinhardt staged Shaw's ''Saint Joan'', Goldoni's ''Servant of Two Masters'' (with the improvisational approach of the ''commedia dell'arte'' in which the actors chatted with the prompter about their roles), and Pirandello's ''Six Characters in Search of an Author'' in his group of Berlin theatres. A new version of Brecht's third play, now entitled ''Jungle: Decline of a Family'', opened at the Deutsches Theater in October 1924, but was not a success.

At this time Brecht revised his important "transitional poem", "Of Poor BB". In 1925, his publishers provided him with Elisabeth Hauptmann as an assistant for the completion of his collection of poems, ''Devotions for the Home'' (''Hauspostille'', eventually published in January 1927). She continued to work with him after the publisher's commission ran out.

In 1925 in Mannheim the artistic exhibition ''Neue Sachlichkeit'' ("new objectivity") had given its name to the new post-Expressionist movement in the German arts. With little to do at the Deutsches Theater, Brecht began to develop his ''Man Equals Man'' project, which was to become the first product of "the 'Brecht collective'—that shifting group of friends and collaborators on whom he henceforward depended." This collaborative approach to artistic production, together with aspects of Brecht's writing and style of theatrical production, mark Brecht's work from this period as part of the ''Neue Sachlichkeit'' movement. The collective's work "mirrored the artistic climate of the middle 1920s," Willett and Manheim argue:

with their attitude of 'Neue Sachlichkeit' (or New Matter-of-Factness), their stressing of the collectivity and downplaying of the individual, and their new cult of Anglo-Saxon imagery and sport. Together the "collective" would go to fights, not only absorbing their terminology and ethos (which permeates ''Man Equals Man'') but also drawing those conclusions for the theatre as a whole which Brecht set down in his theoretical essay "Emphasis on Sport" and tried to realise by means of the harsh lighting, the boxing-ring stage and other anti-illusionistic devices that henceforward appeared in his own productions.

In 1925, Brecht also saw two films that had a significant influence on him: Chaplin's ''The Gold Rush'' and Eisenstein's ''Battleship Potemkin''. Brecht had compared Valentin to Chaplin, and the two of them provided models for Galy Gay in ''Man Equals Man''. Brecht later wrote that Chaplin "would in many ways come closer to the epic than to the dramatic theatre's requirements." They met several times during Brecht's time in the United States, and discussed Chaplin's ''Monsieur Verdoux'' project, which it is possible Brecht influenced.

In 1926 a series of short stories was published under Brecht's name, though Hauptmann was closely associated with writing them. Following the production of ''Man Equals Man'' in Darmstadt that year, Brecht began studying Marxism and socialism in earnest, under the supervision of Hauptmann. "When I read Marx's ''Capital''", a note by Brecht reveals, "I understood my plays." Marx was, it continues, "the only spectator for my plays I'd ever come across."

In 1927 Brecht became part of the "dramaturgical collective" of Erwin Piscator's first company, which was designed to tackle the problem of finding new plays for its "epic, political, confrontational, documentary theatre". Brecht collaborated with Piscator during the period of the latter's landmark productions, ''Hoppla, We're Alive!'' by Toller, ''Rasputin'', ''The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik'', and ''Konjunktur'' by Lania. Brecht's most significant contribution was to the adaptation of the unfinished episodic comic novel ''Schweik'', which he later described as a "montage from the novel". The Piscator productions influenced Brecht's ideas about staging and design, and alerted him to the radical potentials offered to the "epic" playwright by the development of stage technology (particularly projections). What Brecht took from Piscator "is fairly plain, and he acknowledged it" Willett suggests:

The emphasis on Reason and didacticism, the sense that the new subject matter demanded a new dramatic form, the use of songs to interrupt and comment: all these are found in his notes and essays of the 1920s, and he bolstered them by citing such Piscatorial examples as the step-by-step narrative technique of ''Schweik'' and the oil interests handled in ''Konjunktur'' ('Petroleum resists the five-act form').

Brecht was struggling at the time with the question of how to dramatize the complex economic relationships of modern capitalism in his unfinished project ''Joe P. Fleischhacker'' (which Piscator's theatre announced in its programme for the 1927–28 season). It wasn't until his ''Saint Joan of the Stockyards'' (written between 1929–1931) that Brecht solved it. In 1928 he discussed with Piscator plans to stage Shakespeare's ''Julius Caesar'' and Brecht's own ''Drums in the Night'', but the productions did not materialize.

1927 also saw the first collaboration between Brecht and the young composer Kurt Weill. Together they began to develop Brecht's ''Mahagonny'' project, along thematic lines of the biblical Cities of the Plain but rendered in terms of the ''Neue Sachlichkeit'''s ''Amerikanismus'', which had informed Brecht's previous work. They produced ''The Little Mahagonny'' for a music festival in July, as what Weill called a "stylistic exercise" in preparation for the large-scale piece. From that point on Caspar Neher became an integral part of the collaborative effort, with words, music and visuals conceived in relation to one another from the start. The model for their mutual articulation lay in Brecht's newly-formulated principle of the "separation of the elements", which he first outlined in "The Modern Theatre is the Epic Theatre" (1930). The principle, a variety of montage, proposed by-passing the "great struggle for supremacy between words, music and production" as Brecht put it, by showing each as self-contained, independent works of art that adopt attitudes towards one another.

In 1930 Brecht married Weigel; their daughter Barbara Brecht was born soon after the wedding. She also became an actress and currently holds the copyrights to all of Brecht's work.

Brecht formed a writing collective which became prolific and very influential. Elisabeth Hauptmann, Margarete Steffin, Emil Burri, Ruth Berlau and others worked with Brecht and produced the multiple teaching plays, which attempted to create a new dramaturgy for participants rather than passive audiences. These addressed themselves to the massive worker arts organisation that existed in Germany and Austria in the 1920s. So did Brecht's first great play, ''Saint Joan of the Stockyards'', which attempted to portray the drama in financial transactions.

This collective adapted John Gay's ''The Beggar's Opera'', with Brecht's lyrics set to music by Kurt Weill. Retitled ''The Threepenny Opera'' (''Die Dreigroschenoper'') it was the biggest hit in Berlin of the 1920s and a renewing influence on the musical worldwide. One of its most famous lines underscored the hypocrisy of conventional morality imposed by the Church, working in conjunction with the established order, in the face of working-class hunger and deprivation:

{| | :''Erst kommt das Fressen'' :''Dann kommt die Moral.'' | :First the grub (lit. "eating like animals, gorging") :Then the morality. |}

The success of ''The Threepenny Opera'' was followed by the quickly thrown together ''Happy End''. It was a personal and a commercial failure. At the time the book was purported to be by the mysterious Dorothy Lane (now known to be Elisabeth Hauptmann, Brecht's secretary and close collaborator). Brecht only claimed authorship of the song texts. Brecht would later use elements of ''Happy End'' as the germ for his ''Saint Joan of the Stockyards'', a play that would never see the stage in Brecht's lifetime. ''Happy End'''s score by Weill produced many Brecht/Weill hits like "Der Bilbao-Song" and "Surabaya-Jonny".

The masterpiece of the Brecht/Weill collaborations, ''Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny'' (''Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny''), caused an uproar when it premiered in 1930 in Leipzig, with Nazis in the audience protesting. The ''Mahagonny'' opera would premier later in Berlin in 1931 as a triumphant sensation.

Brecht spent his last years in the Weimar-era Berlin (1930–1933) working with his "collective" on the ''Lehrstücke''. These were a group of plays driven by morals, music and Brecht's budding epic theatre. The ''Lehrstücke'' often aimed at educating workers on Socialist issues. ''The Measures Taken'' (''Die Massnahme'') was scored by Hanns Eisler. In addition, Brecht worked on a script for a semi-documentary feature film about the human impact of mass unemployment, ''Kuhle Wampe'' (1932), which was directed by Slatan Dudow. This striking film is notable for its subversive humour, outstanding cinematography by Günther Krampf, and Hanns Eisler's dynamic musical contribution. It still provides a vivid insight into Berlin during the last years of the Weimar Republic. The so-called "Westend Berlin Scene" in the 1930 was an important influencing factor on Brecht, playing in a milieu around Ulmenallee in Westend with artists like Richard Strauss, Marlene Dietrich and Herbert Ihering.

By February 1933, Brecht’s work was eclipsed by the rise of Nazi rule in Germany. (Brecht would also have his work challenged again in later life by the U.S. House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which believed he was under the influence of communism.)

Nazi Germany and World War II (1933–1945)

Fearing persecution, Brecht left Germany in February 1933, when Hitler took power. After brief spells in Prague, Zurich and Paris he and Weigel accepted an invitation from journalist and author Karin Michaelis to move to Denmark where they settled in a house in Svendborg on the island of Funen. This became the residence of the Brecht family for the next six years, where they often received guests including Walter Benjamin, Hanns Eisler and Ruth Berlau. During this period Brecht also travelled frequently to Copenhagen, Paris, Moscow, New York and London for various projects and collaborations.

When war seemed imminent in April 1939, he moved to Stockholm, Sweden, where he remained for a year. Then Hitler invaded Norway and Denmark, and Brecht was forced to leave Sweden for Helsinki in Finland where he waited for his visa for the United States until 3 May 1941.

During the war years, Brecht became a prominent writer of the Exilliteratur. He expressed his opposition to the National Socialist and Fascist movements in his most famous plays: ''Life of Galileo'', ''Mother Courage and Her Children'', ''The Good Person of Szechwan'', ''The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui'', ''The Caucasian Chalk Circle'', ''Fear and Misery of the Third Reich'', and many others.

Brecht also wrote the screenplay for the Fritz Lang-directed film ''Hangmen Also Die!'' which was loosely based on the 1942 assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi Reich Protector of German-occupied Prague, number-two man in the SS, and a chief architect of the Holocaust, who was known as "The Hangman of Prague." It was Brecht's only script for a Hollywood film: the money he earned from the project enabled him to write ''The Visions of Simone Machard'', ''Schweik in the Second World War'' and an adaptation of Webster's ''The Duchess of Malfi''. Hanns Eisler was nominated for an Academy Award for his musical score. The collaboration of three prominent refugees from Nazi Germany –Lang, Brecht and Eisler – is an example of the influence this generation of German exiles had in American culture.

Cold War and final years in East Germany (1945–1956)

In the years of the Cold War and "Red Scare", Brecht was blacklisted by movie studio bosses and interrogated by the House Un-American Activities Committee. Along with about 41 other Hollywood writers, directors, actors and producers, he was subpoenaed to appear before the HUAC in September 1947. Although he was one of 19 witnesses who declared that they would refuse to appear, Brecht eventually decided to testify. He later explained that he had followed the advice of attorneys and had not wanted to delay a planned trip to Europe. Dressed in overalls and smoking an acrid cigar that made some of the committee members feel slightly ill, on 30 October 1947 Brecht testified that he had never been a member of the Communist Party. He made wry jokes throughout the proceedings, punctuating his inability to speak English well with continuous references to the translators present, who transformed his German statements into English ones unintelligible to himself. HUAC Vice Chairman Karl Mundt thanked Brecht for his co-operation. The remaining witnesses, the so called Hollywood Ten, refused to testify and were cited for contempt. Brecht's decision to appear before the committee led to criticism, including accusations of betrayal. The day after his testimony, on 31 October, Brecht returned to Europe.

In Chur in Switzerland, Brecht staged an adaptation of Sophocles' ''Antigone'', based on a translation by Hölderlin. It was published under the title ''Antigonemodell 1948'', accompanied by an essay on the importance of creating a "non-Aristotelian" form of theatre. An offer of his own theatre (completed in 1954) and theatre company (the Berliner Ensemble) encouraged Brecht to return to Berlin in 1949. He retained his Austrian nationality (granted in 1950) and overseas bank accounts from which he received valuable hard currency remittances. The copyrights on his writings were held by a Swiss company. At the time he drove a pre-war DKW car—a rare luxury in the austere divided capital.

Though he was never a member of the Communist Party, Brecht had been deeply schooled in Marxism by the dissident communist Karl Korsch. Korsch's version of the Marxist dialectic influenced Brecht greatly, both his aesthetic theory and theatrical practice. Brecht received the Stalin Peace Prize in 1954.

Brecht wrote very few plays in his final years in East Berlin, none of them as famous as his previous works. He dedicated himself to directing plays and developing the talents of the next generation of young directors and dramaturgs, such as Manfred Wekwerth, Benno Besson and Carl Weber. Some of his most famous poems, including the "Buckow Elegies", were written at this time.

At first Brecht supported the measures taken by the East German government against the Uprising of 1953 in East Germany, which included the use of Soviet military force. In a letter from the day of the uprising to SED First Secretary Walter Ulbricht, Brecht wrote that: "History will pay its respects to the revolutionary impatience of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. The great discussion [exchange] with the masses about the speed of socialist construction will lead to a viewing and safeguarding of the socialist achievements. At this moment I must assure you of my allegiance to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany." Brecht's subsequent commentary on those events, however, offered a different assessment—in one of the poems in the ''Elegies'', "Die Lösung" (The Solution), Brecht writes: :{| | After the uprising of the 17th of June The Secretary of the Writers Union Had leaflets distributed in the Stalinallee Stating that the people Had forfeited the confidence of the government And could win it back only By redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier In that case for the government To dissolve the people And elect another? |}

Death

Brecht died on 14 August 1956 of a heart attack at the age of 58. He is buried in the Dorotheenstädtischer cemetery on Chausseestraße in the Mitte neighbourhood of Berlin, overlooked by the residence he shared with Helene Weigel.

Theory and practice of theatre

From his late twenties Brecht remained a lifelong committed Marxist who, in developing the combined theory and practice of his "epic theatre", synthesized and extended the experiments of Erwin Piscator and Vsevolod Meyerhold to explore the theatre as a forum for political ideas and the creation of a critical aesthetics of dialectical materialism.

Epic Theatre proposed that a play should not cause the spectator to identify emotionally with the characters or action before him or her, but should instead provoke rational self-reflection and a critical view of the action on the stage. Brecht thought that the experience of a climactic catharsis of emotion left an audience complacent. Instead, he wanted his audiences to adopt a critical perspective in order to recognise social injustice and exploitation and to be moved to go forth from the theatre and effect change in the world outside. For this purpose, Brecht employed the use of techniques that remind the spectator that the play is a representation of reality and not reality itself. By highlighting the constructed nature of the theatrical event, Brecht hoped to communicate that the audience's reality was equally constructed and, as such, was changeable.

Brecht's modernist concern with drama-as-a-medium led to his refinement of the "epic form" of the drama. This dramatic form is related to similar modernist innovations in other arts, including the strategy of divergent chapters in James Joyce's novel ''Ulysses'', Sergei Eisenstein's evolution of a constructivist "montage" in the cinema, and Picasso's introduction of cubist "collage" in the visual arts.

One of Brecht's most important principles was what he called the ''Verfremdungseffekt'' (translated as "defamiliarization effect", "distancing effect", or "estrangement effect", and often mistranslated as "alienation effect"). This involved, Brecht wrote, "stripping the event of its self-evident, familiar, obvious quality and creating a sense of astonishment and curiosity about them". To this end, Brecht employed techniques such as the actor's direct address to the audience, harsh and bright stage lighting, the use of songs to interrupt the action, explanatory placards, and, in rehearsals, the transposition of text to the third person or past tense, and speaking the stage directions out loud.

In contrast to many other avant-garde approaches, however, Brecht had no desire to destroy art as an institution; rather, he hoped to "re-function" the theatre to a new social use. In this regard he was a vital participant in the aesthetic debates of his era—particularly over the "high art/popular culture" dichotomy—vying with the likes of Adorno, Lukács, Ernst Bloch, and developing a close friendship with Benjamin. Brechtian theatre articulated popular themes and forms with avant-garde formal experimentation to create a modernist realism that stood in sharp contrast both to its psychological and socialist varieties. "Brecht's work is the most important and original in European drama since Ibsen and Strindberg," Raymond Williams argues, while Peter Bürger dubs him "the most important materialist writer of our time."

Brecht was also influenced by Chinese theatre, and used its aesthetic as an argument for Verfremdungseffekt. Brecht believed, "Traditional Chinese acting also knows the alienation effect, and applies it most subtly.... The [Chinese] performer portrays incidents of utmost passion, but without his delivery becoming heated." Brecht attended a Chinese opera performance and was introduced to the famous Chinese opera performer Mei LanFang in 1935. However, Brecht was sure to distinguish between Epic and Chinese theatre. He recognized that the Chinese style was not a "transportable piece of technique," and that Epic theatre sought to historicize and address social and political issues.

Impact

Brecht left the Berliner Ensemble to his wife, the actress Helene Weigel, which she ran until her death in 1971. Perhaps the most famous German touring theatre of the postwar era, it was primarily devoted to performing Brecht's plays. His son, Stefan Brecht, became a poet and theatre critic interested in New York's avant-garde theatre. Brecht has been a controversial figure in Germany, and in his native city of Augsburg there were objections to creating a birthplace museum. By the 1970s, however, Brecht's plays had surpassed Shakespeare's in the number of annual performances in Germany.

There are few areas of modern theatrical culture that have not felt the impact or influence of Brecht's ideas and practices; dramatists and directors in whom one may trace a clear Brechtian legacy include: Dario Fo, Augusto Boal, Joan Littlewood, Peter Brook, Peter Weiss, Heiner Müller, Pina Bausch, Tony Kushner, Robert Bolt and Caryl Churchill.

In addition to the theatre, Brechtian theories and techniques have exerted considerable sway over certain strands of film theory and cinematic practice; Brecht's influence may be detected in the films of Jean-Luc Godard, Lindsay Anderson, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Joseph Losey, Nagisa Oshima, Ritwik Ghatak, Lars von Trier, Jan Bucquoy and Hal Hartley.

Brecht in fiction

In the 1930 novel ''Success'', Brecht's mentor Lion Feuchtwanger immortalized Brecht as the character Kaspar Pröckl.

In the 2006 film ''The Lives of Others'', a Stasi agent is partially inspired to save a playwright he has been spying on by reading a book of Brecht poetry that he had stolen from the artist's apartment.

''Brecht at Night'' by Mati Unt, transl. Eric Dickens (Dalkey Archive Press, 2009)

Collaborators and associates

Collective and collaborative working methods were inherent to Brecht's approach, as Fredric Jameson (among others) stresses. Jameson describes the creator of the work not as Brecht the individual, but rather as 'Brecht': a collective subject that "certainly seemed to have a distinctive style (the one we now call 'Brechtian') but was no longer personal in the bourgeois or individualistic sense." During the course of his career, Brecht sustained many long-lasting creative relationships with other writers, composers, scenographers, directors, dramaturgs and actors; the list includes: Elisabeth Hauptmann, Margarete Steffin, Ruth Berlau, Slatan Dudow, Kurt Weill, Hanns Eisler, Paul Dessau, Caspar Neher, Teo Otto, Karl von Appen, Ernst Busch, Lotte Lenya, Peter Lorre, Therese Giehse, Angelika Hurwicz, Carola Neher and Helene Weigel herself. This is "theatre as collective experiment [...] as something radically different from theatre as expression or as experience."

List of collaborators and associates

Karl von Appen

Walter Benjamin

Eric Bentley

Ruth Berghaus

Ruth Berlau

Berliner Ensemble

Benno Besson

Arnolt Bronnen

Emil Burri

Ernst Busch

Paul Dessau

Slatan Dudow

Hanns Eisler

Erich Engel

Erwin Faber

Lion Feuchtwanger

Therese Giehse

Alexander Granach

Elisabeth Hauptmann

Paul Hindemith

Oskar Homolka

Angelika Hurwicz

Herbert Ihering

Fritz Kortner

Fritz Lang

Wolfgang Langhoff

Charles Laughton

Lotte Lenya

Theo Lingen

Peter Lorre

Ralph Manheim

Carola Neher

Caspar Neher

Teo Otto

G W Pabst

Erwin Piscator

Margarete Steffin

Carl Weber

Helene Weigel

Kurt Weill

John Willett

Works

Plays

Entries show: ''English-language translation of title'' (''German-language title'') [year written] / [year first produced]

''Baal'' 1918/1923

''Drums in the Night'' (''Trommeln in der Nacht'') 1918–20/1922

''The Beggar'' (''Der Bettler oder Der tote Hund'') 1919/?

''A Respectable Wedding'' (''Die Kleinbürgerhochzeit'') 1919/1926

''Driving Out a Devil'' (''Er treibt einen Teufel aus'') 1919/?

''Lux in Tenebris'' 1919/?

''The Catch'' (''Der Fischzug'') 1919?/?

''Mysteries of a Barbershop'' (''Mysterien eines Friseursalons'') (screenplay) 1923

''In the Jungle of Cities'' (''Im Dickicht der Städte'') 1921–24/1923

''The Life of Edward II of England'' (''Leben Eduards des Zweiten von England'') 1924/1924

''Downfall of the Egotist Johann Fatzer'' (''Der Untergang des Egoisten Johnann Fatzer'') (fragments) 1926–30/1974

''Man Equals Man'' (''Mann ist Mann'') 1924–26/1926

''The Elephant Calf'' (''Das Elefantenkalb'') 1924–26/1926

''Little Mahagonny'' (''Mahagonny-Songspiel'') 1927/1927

''The Threepenny Opera'' (''Die Dreigroschenoper'') 1928/1928

''The Flight across the Ocean'' (''Der Ozeanflug''); originally ''Lindbergh's Flight'' (''Lindberghflug'') 1928–29/1929

''The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent'' (''Badener Lehrstück vom Einverständnis'') 1929/1929

''Happy End'' (''Happy End'') 1929/1929

''The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny'' (''Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny'') 1927–29/1930

''He Said Yes'' / ''He Said No'' (''Der Jasager''; ''Der Neinsager'') 1929–30/1930–?

''The Decision'' (''Die Maßnahme'') 1930/1930

''Saint Joan of the Stockyards'' (''Die heilige Johanna der Schlachthöfe'') 1929–31/1959

''The Exception and the Rule'' (''Die Ausnahme und die Regel'') 1930/1938

''The Mother'' (''Die Mutter'') 1930–31/1932

''Kuhle Wampe'' (screenplay) 1931/1932

''The Seven Deadly Sins'' (''Die sieben Todsünden der Kleinbürger'') 1933/1933

''Round Heads and Pointed Heads'' (''Die Rundköpfe und die Spitzköpfe'') 1931–34/1936

''The Horatians and the Curiatians'' (''Die Horatier und die Kuriatier'') 1933–34/1958

''Fear and Misery of the Third Reich'' (''Furcht und Elend des Dritten Reiches'') 1935–38/1938

''Señora Carrar's Rifles'' (''Die Gewehre der Frau Carrar'') 1937/1937

''Life of Galileo'' (''Leben des Galilei'') 1937–39/1943

''How Much Is Your Iron?'' (''Was kostet das Eisen?'') 1939/1939

''Dansen'' (''Dansen'') 1939/?

''Mother Courage and Her Children'' (''Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder'') 1938–39/1941

''The Trial of Lucullus'' (''Das Verhör des Lukullus'') 1938–39/1940

''Mr Puntila and his Man Matti'' (''Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti'') 1940/1948

''The Good Person of Szechwan'' (''Der gute Mensch von Sezuan'') 1939–42/1943

''The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui'' (''Der aufhaltsame Aufstieg des Arturo Ui'') 1941/1958

''Hangmen Also Die!'' (screenplay) 1942/1943

''The Visions of Simone Machard'' (''Die Gesichte der Simone Machard '') 1942–43/1957

''The Duchess of Malfi'' 1943/1943

''Schweik in the Second World War'' (''Schweyk im Zweiten Weltkrieg'') 1941–43/1957

''The Caucasian Chalk Circle'' (''Der kaukasische Kreidekreis'') 1943–45/1948

''Antigone'' (''Die Antigone des Sophokles'') 1947/1948

''The Days of the Commune'' (''Die Tage der Commune'') 1948–49/1956

''The Tutor'' (''Der Hofmeister'') 1950/1950

''The Condemnation of Lucullus'' (''Die Verurteilung des Lukullus'') 1938–39/1951

''Report from Herrnburg'' (''Herrnburger Bericht'') 1951/1951

''Coriolanus'' (''Coriolan'') 1951–53/1962

''The Trial of Joan of Arc of Proven, 1431'' (''Der Prozess der Jeanne D'Arc zu Rouen, 1431'') 1952/1952

''Turandot'' (''Turandot oder Der Kongreß der Weißwäscher'') 1953–54/1969

''Don Juan'' (''Don Juan'') 1952/1954

''Trumpets and Drums'' (''Pauken und Trompeten'') 1955/1955

Fiction

''Stories of Mr. Keuner'' (''Geschichten vom Herrn Keuner'')

Theoretical works

''The Modern Theatre is the Epic Theatre'' (1930)

''The Threepenny Lawsuit'' (''Der Dreigroschenprozess'') (written 1931; published 1932)

''The Book of Changes'' (fragment also known as ''Me-Ti''; written 1935–1939)

''The Street Scene'' (written 1938; published 1950)

''The Popular and the Realistic'' (written 1938; published 1958)

''Short Description of a New Technique of Acting which Produces an Alienation Effect'' (written 1940; published 1951)

''A Short Organum for the Theatre'' ("Kleines Organon für das Theater", written 1948; published 1949)

''The Messingkauf Dialogues'' (''Dialogue aus dem Messingkauf'', published 1963)

Notes

Primary sources

Essays, diaries and journals

Brecht, Bertolt. 1964. ''Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic''. Ed. and trans. John Willett. British edition. London: Methuen. ISBN 041338800X. USA edition. New York: Hill and Wang. ISBN 0809031000.

2000a. ''Brecht on Film and Radio''. Ed. and trans. Marc Silberman. British edition. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413725006.

2003a. ''Brecht on Art and Politics''. Ed. and trans. Thomas Kuhn and Steve Giles. British edition. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413758907.

1965. ''The Messingkauf Dialogues''. Trans. John Willett. London: Methuen, 1985. ISBN 0413388905.

1990. ''Letters 1913–1956''. Trans. Ralph Manheim. Ed. John Willett. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413510506.

1993. ''Journals 1934–1955''. Trans. Hugh Rorrison. Ed. John Willett. London and New York: Routledge, 1996. ISBN 0415912822.

Drama, poetry and prose

Brecht, Bertolt. 1994a. ''Collected Plays: One''. Ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. Bertolt Brecht: Plays, Poetry, Prose Ser. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413685705.

1994b. ''Collected Plays: Two''. Ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413685608.

1997. ''Collected Plays: Three''. Ed. John Willett. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413704602.

2003b. ''Collected Plays: Four''. Ed. Tom Kuhn and John Willett. London: Methuen. ISBN 0-413-70470-X.

1995. ''Collected Plays: Five''. Ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. London: Methuen. ISBN 0-413-69970-6.

1994c. ''Collected Plays: Six''. Ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. London: Methuen. ISBN 0-413-68580-2.

1994d. ''Collected Plays: Seven''. Ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. London: Methuen. ISBN 0-413-68590-X.

2004. ''Collected Plays: Eight.'' Ed. Tom Kuhn and David Constantine. London: Methuen. ISBN 0-413-77352-3.

1972. ''Collected Plays: Nine.'' Ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. New York: Vintage. ISBN 0-394-71819-4.

2000b. ''Poems: 1913–1956''. Ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. London: Methuen. ISBN 0-413-15210-3.

1983. ''Short Stories: 1921–1946''. Ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. Trans. Yvonne Kapp, Hugh Rorrison and Antony Tatlow. London and New York: Methuen. ISBN 0-413-52890-1.

2001. ''Stories of Mr. Keuner''. Trans. Martin Chalmers. San Francisco: City Lights. ISBN 0-87286-383-2.

Secondary sources

[Anon.] 1952. "Brecht Directs". In ''Directors on Directing: A Source Book to the Modern Theater''. Ed. Toby Cole and Helen Krich Chinoy. Rev. ed. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon, 1963. ISBN 0-02-323300-1. 291- [Account of Brecht in rehearsal from anonymous colleague published in ''Theaterarbeit'']

Banham, Martin, ed. 1998. "Brecht, Bertolt" In ''The Cambridge Guide to Theatre.'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-43437-8. 129.

Benjamin, Walter. 1983. ''Understanding Brecht''. Trans. Anna Bostock. London and New York: Verso. ISBN 0-902308-99-8.

Brooker, Peter. 1994. "Key Words in Brecht's Theory and Practice of Theatre". In Thomson and Sacks (1994, 185–200).

Bürger, Peter. 1984. ''Theory of the Avant-Garde''. Trans. of ''Theorie der Avantgarde'' (2nd ed., 1980). Theory and History of Literature Ser. 4. Trans. Michael Shaw. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-1068-1.

Calandra, Denis. 2003. "Karl Valentin and Bertolt Brecht". In ''Popular Theatre: A Sourcebook''. Ed. Joel Schechter. Worlds of Performance Ser. London and New York: Routledge. 189–201. ISBN 0-415-25830-8.

Counsell, Colin. 1996. ''Signs of Performance: An Introduction to Twentieth-Century Theatre.'' London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-10643-5.

Culbert, David. 1995. ''Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television'' (March). [Bibliographic information on this article is missing at present – need article title, is this the author of article?, and page numbers]

Demetz, Peter, ed. 1962. "From the Testimony of Berthold Brecht: Hearings of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, 30 October 1947". ''Brecht: A Collection of Critical Essays''. Twentieth Century Views Ser. Eaglewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-081760-0. 30–42.

Diamond, Elin. 1997. ''Unmaking Mimesis: Essays on Feminism and Theater''. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-01229-5.

Eagleton, Terry. 1985. "Brecht and Rhetoric". ''New Literary History'' 16.3 (Spring). 633–638.

Eaton, Katherine B. "Brecht's Contacts with the Theater of Meyerhold". in ''Comparative Drama'' 11.1 (Spring 1977)3-21. Reprinted in 1984. ''Drama in the Twentieth Century'' ed. C. Davidson. New York: AMS Press, 1984. ISBN 0-404-61581-3. 203-221. 1979. "''Die Pionierin'' und ''Feld-Herren'' vorm ''Kreidekreis''. Bemerkungen zu Brecht und Tretjakow". in ''Brecht-Jahrbuch 1979''. Ed. J. Fuegi, R. Grimm, J. Hermand. Suhrkamp, 1979. 1985 19–29. ''The Theater of Meyerhold and Brecht''. Connecticut and New York: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-24590-8.

Eddershaw, Margaret. 1982. "Acting Methods: Brecht and Stanislavski". In ''Brecht in Perspective''. Ed. Graham Bartram and Anthony Waine. London: Longman. ISBN 0-582-49205-X. 128–144.

Ewen, Frederic. 1967. ''Bertolt Brecht: His Life, His Art and His Times.'' Citadel Press Book edition. New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1992.

Fuegi, John. 1994. "The Zelda Syndrome: Brecht and Elizabeth Hauptmann". In Thomson and Sacks (1994, 104–116).

Fuegi, John. 2002. ''Brecht and Company: Sex, Politics, and the Making of the Modern Drama.'' New York: Grove. ISBN 0-8021-3910-8.

Giles, Steve. 1998. "Marxist Aesthetics and Cultural Modernity in ''Der Dreigroschenprozeß''". ''Bertolt Brecht: Centenary Essays.'' Ed. Steve Giles and Rodney Livingstone. German Monitor 41. Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA: Rodopi. ISBN 90-420-0309-X. 49–61.

Hayman, Ronald. 1983. ''Brecht: A Biography.'' London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-78206-1.

Jameson, Fredric. 1998. ''Brecht and Method''. London and New York: Verso. ISBN 1-85984-809-5.

Jacobs, Nicholas and Prudence Ohlsen, eds. 1977. ''Bertolt Brecht in Britain.'' London: IRAT Services Ltd and TQ Publications. ISBN 0-904844-11-0.

Kolocotroni, Vassiliki, Jane Goldman and Olga Taxidou, eds. 1998. ''Modernism: An Anthology of Sources and Documents''. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. ISBN 0-7486-0973-3.

Krause, Duane. 1995. "An Epic System". In ''Acting (Re)considered: Theories and Practices''. Ed. Phillip B. Zarrilli. 1st ed. Worlds of Performance Ser. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-09859-9. 262–274.

Leach, Robert. 1994. "''Mother Courage and Her Children''". In Thomson and Sacks (1994, 128–138).

Giuseppe Leone, "Bertolt Brecht, ripropose l'eterno conflitto dell'intellettuale fra libertà di ricerca e condizionamenti del potere", su "Ricorditi...di me" in "Lecco 2000", Lecco, giugno 1998.

Meech, Tony. 1994. "Brecht's Early Plays". In Thomson and Sacks (1994, 43–55).

Mitter, Schomit. 1992. "To Be And Not To Be: Bertolt Brecht and Peter Brook". ''Systems of Rehearsal: Stanislavsky, Brecht, Grotowski and Brook''. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-06784-7. 42–77.

McDowell, W. Stuart. 1977. "A Brecht-Valentin Production: ''Mysteries of a Barbershop.''" ''Performing Arts Journal'' 1.3 (Winter): 2-14.

McDowell, W. Stuart. 2000. "Acting Brecht: The Munich Years". In ''The Brecht Sourcebook.'' Ed. Carol Martin and Henry Bial. Worlds of Performance ser. London and New York: Routledge. 71–83. ISBN 0-415-20043-1.

Müller, Heiner. 1990. ''Germania''. Trans. Bernard Schütze and Caroline Schütze. Ed. Sylvère Lotringer. Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Ser. New York: Semiotext(e). ISBN 0-936756-63-2.

Needle, Jan and Peter Thomson. 1981. ''Brecht''. Chicago: U of Chicago P; Oxford: Basil Blackwell. ISBN 0-226-57022-3.

Pabst, G.W. 1984. ''The Threepenny Opera''. Classic Film Scripts Ser. London: Lorrimer. ISBN 0-85647-006-6.

Reinelt, Janelle. 1990. "Rethinking Brecht: Deconstruction, Feminism, and the Politics of Form". ''The Brecht Yearbook'' 15. Ed. Marc Silberman et al. Madison, Wisconsin: The International Brecht Society-University of Wisconsin Press. 99–107.

Reinelt, Janelle. 1994. "A Feminist Reconsideration of the Brecht/Lukács Debate". ''Women & Performance: A Journal of Feminist Theory'' 7.1 (Issue 13). 122–139.

Rouse, John. 1995. "Brecht and the Contradictory Actor". In ''Acting (Re)considered: A Theoretical and Practical Guide''. Ed. Phillip B. Zarrilli. 2nd ed. Worlds of Performance Ser. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-26300-X. 248–259.

Sacks, Glendyr. 1994. "A Brecht Calendar". In Thomson and Sacks (1994, xvii–xxvii).

Schechter, Joel. 1994. "Brecht's Clowns: ''Man is Man'' and After". In Thomson and Sacks (1994, 68–78).

Smith, Iris. 1991. "Brecht and the Mothers of Epic Theater". ''Theatre Journal'' 43: 491–505.

Szondi, Peter. 1965. ''Theory of the Modern Drama.'' Ed. and trans. Michael Hays. Theory and History of Literature Ser. 29. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987. ISBN 0-8166-1285-4.

Taxidou, Olga. 1995. "Crude Thinking: John Fuegi and Recent Brecht Criticism". ''New Theatre Quarterly'' XI.44 (Nov. 1995): 381–384.

Taxidou, Olga. 2007. ''Modernism and Performance: Jarry to Brecht''. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 1-4039-4101-7.

Thomson, Peter. 1994. "Brecht's Lives". In Thomson and Sacks (1994, 22–39).

Thomson, Peter. 2000. "Brecht and Actor Training: On Whose Behalf Do We Act?" In ''Twentieth Century Actor Training''. Ed. Alison Hodge. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-19452-0. 98–112.

Thomson, Peter and Glendyr Sacks, eds. 1994. ''The Cambridge Companion to Brecht''. Cambridge Companions to Literature Ser. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-41446-6.

Völker, Klaus. 1976. ''Brecht: A Biography.'' Trans. John Nowell. New York: Seabury P, 1978. Trans. of ''Bertolt Brecht, Eine Biographie.'' Munich and Vienna: Carl Hanser Verlag. ISBN 0-8164-9344-8.

Willett, John. 1967. ''The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht: A Study from Eight Aspects.'' Third rev. ed. London: Methuen, 1977. ISBN 0-413-34360-X.

Willett, John. 1978. ''Art and Politics in the Weimar Period: The New Sobriety 1917–1933''. New York: Da Capo Press, 1996. ISBN 0-306-80724-6.

Willett, John. 1998. ''Brecht in Context: Comparative Approaches''. Rev. ed. London: Methuen. ISBN 0-413-72310-0.

Willett, John and Ralph Manheim. 1970. Introduction. In ''Collected Plays: One'' by Bertolt Brecht. Ed. John Willett and Ralph Manheim. Bertolt Brecht: Plays, Poetry and Prose Ser. London: Methuen. ISBN 0-416-03280-X. vii–xvii.

Weber, Carl. 1984. "The Actor and Brecht, or: The Truth Is Concrete: Some Notes on Directing Brecht with American Actors". ''The Brecht Yearbook'' 13: 63–74.

Weber, Carl 1994. "Brecht and the Berliner Ensemble – the Making of a Model". In Thomson and Sacks (1994, 167–184).

Williams, Raymond. 1993. ''Drama from Ibsen to Brecht''. London: Hogarth. ISBN 0-7012-0793-0. 277–290.

Witt, Hubert, ed. 1975. ''Brecht As They Knew Him''. Trans. John Peet. London: Lawrence and Wishart; New York: International Publishers. ISBN 0-85315-285-3.

Wright, Elizabeth. 1989. ''Postmodern Brecht''. Critics of the Twentieth Century Ser. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-02330-0.

Youngkin, Stephen D. 2005. ''The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre''. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-2360-7. [Contains a detailed discussion of the personal and professional friendship between Brecht and classic film actor Peter Lorre.]

Wizisla, Erdmut. 2009. ''Walter Benjamin and Bertolt Brecht – The Story of a Friendship''. Translated by Christine Shuttleworth. London / New Haven: Libris / Yale University Press. ISBN 1-870352-78-5. ISBN 9781870352789 [Contains a complete translation of the newly-discovered Minutes of the meetings around the putative journal ''Krise und Kritik'' (1931)].

See also

Brecht Forum

Weimar culture

External links

Brecht's works in English: A bibliography: The bibliography of Bertolt Brecht's works in English translation aims to present a comprehensive listing of Brecht's works published in English translation.

The Brecht Yearbook

The International Brecht Society

FBI files on Bertolt Brecht

''Brechts Werke'', Bibliography

''A history of Mack the Knife'' by Joseph Mach at Brechthall

Category:1898 births Category:1956 deaths Category:People from Augsburg Category:Acting theorists Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction Category:East German writers Category:East German poetry Category:German dramatists and playwrights Category:German literary critics Category:German Marxists Category:German poets Category:German screenwriters Category:German theatre critics Category:German theatre directors Category:Hollywood blacklist Category:Marxist theorists Category:Marxist writers Category:McCarthyism Category:Modernist drama, theatre and performance Category:Opera librettists Category:People from the Kingdom of Bavaria Category:Stalin Peace Prize recipients Category:Kleist Prize winners Category:Theatre practitioners Category:People who emigrated to escape Nazism

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Hanns Eisler (6 July 1898 – 6 September 1962) was an Austrian/German composer.

Family background

Eisler was born in Leipzig where his Jewish father, Rudolf Eisler, was a professor of philosophy. In 1901 the family moved to Vienna.

His sister was Ruth Fischer (Elfriede Eisler), a leader of the German Communist Party (KPD) during the 1920s, author of several books, and from 2010, confirmed to have been a CIA spy.

His brother was the journalist and Communist Gerhart Eisler, who was believed to be a major Comintern agent operating under the cover name of Hans Berger. Louis Budenz, a former managing editor of the ''Daily Worker'', called him in a speech in the fall of 1946 "the Number One Communist in the U.S.". Time Magazine wrote of him, "He turned up in China, charged with purging the party of spies and dissidents, sent so many men to their deaths that he was known as 'The Executioner'".

Early years and Bertolt Brecht

During World War I Hanns Eisler served as a front-line soldier in the Austro-Hungarian army and was wounded several times in combat. Returning to Vienna after Austria's defeat, he studied from 1919 to 1923 under Arnold Schoenberg. Eisler was the first of Schoenberg's disciples to compose in the twelve-tone or serial technique. He married Charlotte Demant in 1920; they separated in 1934.

In 1925 Eisler moved to Berlin—then a hothouse of experimentation in music, theater, film, art and politics. There he became a member of the Communist Party of Germany and became involved with the November Group. In 1928, he taught at the Marxist Worker's School in Berlin and his son Georg Eisler, who would grow up to become an important painter, was born.

His music became increasingly oriented towards political themes and, to Schoenberg's dismay, more "popular" in style with influences drawn from jazz and cabaret. At the same time, he drew close to Bertolt Brecht, whose own turn towards Marxism happened at about the same time. The collaboration between the two artists lasted for the rest of Brecht's life.

In 1929, Eisler composed the song cycle ''Zeitungsausschnitte'', Op. 11. The piece is dedicated to Margot Hinnenberg-Lefebre. Though not written in the twelve-tone technique, the piece was perhaps the forerunner of a musical art style later known as "News Items" – musical compositions that parodied a newspaper's content and style, or that included lyrics lifted directly from newspapers, leaflets, magazines, and other written media of the day. Eisler's piece parodies a newspaper's layout and content, with songs in the cycle given titles similar to headlines. The piece offers evidence of Eisler's socialist leanings, as its lyrics indicate the struggles of ordinary Germans who, after World War I, encountered hardship.

Eisler also wrote music for several Brecht plays, including ''The Decision'' (1930), ''The Mother'' (1932) and ''Schweik in the Second World War'' (1957). They also collaborated on protest songs that intervened in the political turmoil of Weimar Germany in the early 1930s. Their ''Solidarity Song'' became a popular militant anthem sung in street protests and public meetings throughout Europe, and their ''Ballad of Paragraph 218'' was the world's first song protesting laws against abortion. Brecht-Eisler songs of this period tended to look at life from "below"—from the perspective of prostitutes, hustlers, the unemployed and the working poor. He worked with Brecht and the director Slatan Dudow on the film ''Kuhle Wampe'' which was banned by the Nazis in 1933.

In exile

After 1933, Eisler's music and Brecht's poetry were banned by the Nazi Party. Both artists fled, first to Moscow, where ''The Decision'' was produced and staged. Eventually, Eisler and Brecht sought refuge in the United States, along with other exiles fleeing Nazi Germany.

In New York City, Eisler taught composition at the New School and wrote experimental chamber and documentary music. Moving shortly before World War II to Los Angeles, he composed several Hollywood film scores, two of which—''Hangmen Also Die!'' and ''None but the Lonely Heart''—were nominated for Oscars. Also working on ''Hangmen Also Die!'' was Bertolt Brecht, who wrote the story along with director Fritz Lang.

In 1947, he wrote the book ''Composing for the Films'' with Theodor W. Adorno. In several chamber and choral compositions of this period, Eisler returned to the twelve-tone method he had abandoned in Berlin. His ''Fourteen Ways of Describing the Rain''—composed for Arnold Schoenberg's 70th birthday celebration—is considered a masterpiece of the genre.

Eisler's two most notable works of the 1930s and 1940s were the monumental ''Deutsche Sinfonie'' (1935–57)—a choral symphony in eleven movements based on poems by Brecht and Ignazio Silone—and a cycle of art songs published as the ''Hollywood Songbook'' (1938–43). With lyrics by Brecht, Eduard Mörike, Friedrich Hölderlin and Goethe, it established Eisler's reputation as one of the 20th century's great composers of German lieder.

The House investigation

Eisler's promising career in the U.S. was interrupted by the Cold War. He was one of the first artists placed on the Hollywood blacklist by the movie studio bosses. In two interrogations by the House Committee on Un-American Activities, the composer was accused of being "the Karl Marx of music" and the chief Soviet agent in Hollywood. Among his accusers was his sister Ruth Fischer, who also testified before the House Committee that her other brother, Gerhart, was a major Communist agent. The Communist press denounced her as a "German Trotskyite." Among the works that Eisler composed for the Communist Party was the "Comintern March", "The Comintern calls you / Raise high Soviet banner / In steeled ranks to battle / Raise sickle and hammer."

His supporters

Eisler's supporters—including his friend Charlie Chaplin and the composers Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein—organized benefit concerts to raise money for his defense fund, but he was deported early in 1948.

Folksinger Woody Guthrie protested the composer's deportation in his lyrics for "Eisler on the Go"—recorded fifty years later by Billy Bragg and Wilco on the 1998 ''Mermaid Avenue'' album. In the song, an introspective Guthrie asked himself what he would do if called to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, "I don't know what I'll do, / I don't know what I'll do / Eisler's on the come and go / and I don't know what I'll do."

On departing from the USA

On 26 March 1948, Eisler and his wife departed from LaGuardia Airport flying to Prague. Before he left he read a statement:

"I leave this country not without bitterness and infuriation. I could well understand it when in 1933 the Hitler bandits put a price on my head and drove me out. They were the evil of the period; I was proud at being driven out. But I feel heart-broken over being driven out of this beautiful country in this ridiculous way."

In East Germany

Eisler returned to Austria and later moved to Berlin, GDR. Back in Germany, he composed the national anthem of the German Democratic Republic, a cycle of cabaret-style songs to satirical poems by Kurt Tucholsky, and incidental music for theater, films and television, and party celebrations.

His most ambitious project of the period was the opera ''Johannes Faustus'' on the Faust theme. The libretto, written by Eisler himself, was published in the fall of 1952.It portrayed Faust as an indecisive person who betrayed the cause of the working class by not joining the German Peasants' War. In May 1953, Eisler's libretto was attacked by a big article in Neues Deutschland, the SED organ. All of these disapproved of the negative depiction of Faust as a renegade and accused the work of being "a slap in the face of German national feeling" and of having "formalistically deformed one of the greatest works of our German poet Goethe" (Ulbricht). Eisler's opera project was discussed in three of the bi-weekly meetings "Mittwochsgesellschaft" [Wednsday club] of a circle of intellectuals under the auspices of the Berlin Academy of Arts beginning on May 13, 1953. The last of these meetings took place on Wednesday, June 10, 1952. A week after that, the workers rebellion of June 17, 1953 pushed those debates from the agenda.

Eisler fell into a deep depression and did not write the music for the opera.

In his last work "Ernste Gesänge" (Serious Songs) written between spring 1961 and August 1962, Eisler worked on his depression, taking up the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union with its demise of the Stalin cult, as a sign of hope for a future enabling to "live without fear".

Although he continued to work as a composer and to teach at the East Berlin conservatory, the gap between Eisler and the cultural functionaries of East Germany grew wider in the last decade of his life. During this period, he befriended musician Wolf Biermann, whose critical attitude towards the GDR government later led him to be stripped of the GDR citizenship while he was on a concert tour in West Germany.

Eisler collaborated with Brecht until the latter's death in 1956. He never recovered completely from his friend's demise and his remaining years were marred by depression and declining health. He died of a heart attack (his second) in East Berlin and is buried near Brecht in the Dorotheenstadt cemetery.

Compositions

1918: ''Gesang des Abgeschiedenen'' ("Die Mausefalle" (after Christian Morgenstern); "Wenn es nur einmal so ganz still wäre" (after Rainer Maria Rilke)

1919: ''Drei Lieder'' (Li-Tai-Po, Klabund); "Sehr leises Gehn im lauen Wind"; "Spartakus"

1922: Allegro moderato and Waltzes; Allegretto and Andante for Piano

1923: Divertimento; Four Piano Pieces

1925: Eight Piano Pieces

1926: ''Tagebuch des Hanns Eisler'' (''Diary of Hanns Eisler''); ''11 Zeitungsausschnitte''; Ten Lieder; Three Songs for Men's Chorus (after Heinrich Heine)

1928: "Drum sag der SPD ade"; "Lied der roten Matrosen" ("Song of the Red Sailors", with Erich Weinert); ''Pantomime'' (with Béla Balázs); "Kumpellied"; "Red Sailors' Song"; "Couplet vom Zeitfreiwilligen"; "Newspaper's Son"; "Auch ein Schumacher (verschiedene Dichter)"; "Was möchst du nicht" (from ''Des Knaben Wunderhorn''); "Wir sind das rote Sprachrohr"

1929: ''Tempo der Zeit'' (''Tempo of Time'') for chorus and small orchestra, Op. 16; Six Lieder (after Weinert, Weber, Jahnke and Vallentin); "Lied der Werktätigen" ("Song of the Working People"; with Stephan Hermlin)

1930: "Die Maßnahme" ("The Measure", ''Lehrstück'', text of Bertolt Brecht), Op. 20; ''Six Ballads'' (after Weber, Brecht, and Walter Mehring); ''Four Ballads'' (after B. Traven, Kurt Tucholsky, Wiesner-Gmeyner, and Arendt); ''Suite No. 1'', Op. 23

1931: "Lied der roten Flieger" (after Kirsanow); ''Four Songs'' (after Frank, Weinert) from the film ''Niemandsland'; Three Songs from the film ''Kuhle Wampe'' (texts of Brecht); "Ballad of the Pirates", "Song of Mariken", ''Four Ballads'' (with Bertolt Brecht); ''Suite No. 2'', Op. 24 ("Niemandsland"); Three Songs after Erich Weinert; "Das Lied vom vierten Mann" ("The Song of the Fourth Man"); "Streiklied" ("Strike Song"); ''Suite No. 3'', Op. 26 ("Kuhle Wampe")

1932: "Ballad of the Women and the Soldiers" (with Brecht); "Song from the Urals" (after Tretyakov); ''Seven Piano Pieces''; ''Kleine Sinfonie'' (''Little Symphony''); ''Suite No. 4'', Op. 30 ("Die Jugend hat das Wort")

1934: "Einheitsfrontlied" ("United Front Song"); "Saarlied" ("Saar Song"), "Lied gegen den Krieg" ("Song Against War"), "Ballade von der Judenhure Marie Sanders" ("Ballad of the Jews' Whore Marie Sanders"), Songs from ''Die Rundköpfe und die Spitzköpfe''; "Sklave, wer wird dich befreien" ("Slave, who will liberate you"; with Brecht); "California Ballad"; ''Six Pieces''; ''Prelude and Fugue on B–A–C–H'' (string trio)

1935: "Die Mutter" ("The Mothers", with Brecht; cantata)

1935: ''Lenin Requiem'' for solo voices, chorus and orchestra

1937: "Friedenssong" ("Peace Song", after Petere); "Kammerkantaten" ("Chamber Cantatas"); Ulm 1592; "Bettellied "("Begging Song", with Brecht); "Lenin Requiem" (with Brecht)

1938: ''Cantata on Herr Meyers' First Birthday''; String Quartet; Theme and Variations "Der lange Marsch"

1939: Nonet No. 1

1940: ''Chamber Symphony''; Suite for Septet No. 1

1940/41: Film Music to ''The Forgotten Village''

1940/41: Nonet No. 2

1941: ''Woodburry-Liederbüchlein'' (''Woodbury Songbook'', 20 Songs); "14 Arten" (for the 70th birthday of Arnold Schoenberg)

1942: "Hollywood-Elegien" ("Hollywood Elegies"; with Brecht) in the ''Hollywooder Liederbuch'' (''Hollywood Songbook'')

1943: Film music for ''Hangmen Also Die!''; Piano Sonata No. 3

1943: Songs to "Schweik in the Second World War"; "Deutsche Misere" (with Brecht)

1946: "Glückliche Fahrt" ("Prosperous Voyage", after Goethe); Incidental music to ''The Life of Galileo''

1946: Film score for ''A Scandal in Paris''

1947: Septet No. 2

1947: music for ''The Woman on the Beach'', film directed by Jean Renoir

1948: "Lied über die Gerechtigkeit" ("Song of Justice", after W. Fischer)

1949: ''Rhapsody''; "Lied über den Frieden" ("Song about Peace"); National Anthem of the DDR (text by Becher); "Treffass"

1950: "Mitte des Jahrhunderts" (after Becher); Four Lieder on ''Die Tage der Commune''; Children's Songs (with Brecht)

1952: "Das Lied vom Glück" ("The Song of Happiness"; after Brecht); "Das Vorbild" (after Goethe)

1955: Night and Fog (film), Songs for the film ''Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti''; "Im Blumengarten" ("In the flower garden"); "Die haltbare Graugans"; Three Lieder after Brecht; "Bel Ami"

1956: ''Vier Szenen auf dem Lande'' ("Four Scenes from the Country", after Erwin Strittmatter); Children's Songs (after Brecht); "Fidelio" (after Beethoven)

1957: ''Deutsche Sinfonie'' (after texts of Bertolt Brecht and Ignazio Silone); ''Bilder aus der Kriegsfibel''; "Die Teppichweber von Kujan-Bulak" ("The Carpetweavers of Kujan-Bulak", with Brecht); "Lied der Tankisten" (text by Weinert); "Regimenter gehn"; "Marsch der Zeit" ("March of Time", after Mayakovsky); Three Lieder (after Mayakovsky and Peter Hacks); "Sputnik-Lied" ("Sputnik Song", text of Kuba)

1958: "Am 1. Mai" ("To May Day", with Brecht)

1962: "Ernste Gesänge" ("Serious Songs"), seven Lieder after Friedrich Hölderlin, Viertel, Giacomo Leopardi, Richter, and Stephan Hermlin

References

External links

The International Hanns Eisler Society

EislerMusic.com

Orel Foundation Hanns Eisler – biography, bibliography, works and discography.

Hanns Eisler Project

Georg Eisler Gallery

Eisler FBI File

Category:1898 births Category:1962 deaths Category:People from Leipzig Category:People from the Kingdom of Saxony Category:German people of Jewish descent Category:20th-century classical composers Category:German composers Category:German film score composers Category:German communists Category:Hollywood blacklist Category:People who emigrated to escape Nazism Category:East German people Category:People deported from the United States Category:Recipients of the National Prize of East Germany

bg:Ханс Айслер bs:Hanns Eisler ca:Hanns Eisler da:Hanns Eisler de:Hanns Eisler es:Hanns Eisler eu:Hanns Eisler fr:Hanns Eisler hr:Hanns Eisler it:Hanns Eisler he:האנס אייזלר nl:Hanns Eisler ja:ハンス・アイスラー no:Hanns Eisler pl:Hanns Eisler pt:Hanns Eisler ru:Эйслер, Ханс fi:Hanns Eisler sv:Hanns Eisler tr:Hanns Eisler diq:Hanns Eisler zh:汉斯·艾斯勒

Kurt Julian Weill (March 2, 1900 – April 3, 1950) was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht. With Brecht, he developed productions such as his most well known work ''The Threepenny Opera'', a Marxist critique of capitalism, which included the ballad "Mack the Knife". Weill was a socialist who held the ideal of writing music that served a socially useful purpose. He also wrote a number of works for the concert hall, as well as several Judaism-themed pieces.

Personal life

Kurt Julian Weill was born on March 2, 1900, the third of four children to Albert Weill (1867–1950) and Emma Weill née Ackermann (1872–1955). He grew up in a religious Jewish family in the "Sandvorstadt", the Jewish quarter in Dessau, Germany, where his father was a cantor. At the age of twelve, Kurt Weill started taking piano lessons and made his first attempts at writing music; his earliest preserved composition was written in 1913 and is titled ''Mi Addir. Jewish Wedding Song''.

In 1915, Weill started taking private lessons with Albert Bing, Kapellmeister at the "Herzogliches Hoftheater zu Dessau", who taught him piano, composition, music theory, and conducting. Weill performed publicly on piano for the first time in 1915, both as an accompanist and soloist. The following years he composed numerous Lieder to the lyrics of poets such as Joseph von Eichendorff, Arno Holz, and Anna Ritter, as well as a cycle of five songs titled ''Ofrahs Lieder'' to a German translation of a text by Yehuda Halevi.

Weill graduated with an Abitur from the ''Oberrealschule'' of Dessau in 1918, and enrolled at the Berliner Hochschule für Musik at the age of 18, where he studied composition with Engelbert Humperdinck, conducting with Rudolf Krasselt, and counterpoint with Friedrich E. Koch, and also attended philosophy lectures by Max Dessoir and Ernst Cassirer. The same year, he wrote his first string quartet (in B minor).

Early work and compositions

Weill's family experienced financial hardship in the aftermath of World War I, and in July 1919, Weill abandoned his studies and returned to Dessau, where he was employed as a répétiteur at the Friedrich-Theater under the direction of the new Kapellmeister, Hans Knappertsbusch. During this time, he composed an orchestral suite in E-flat major, a symphonic poem of Rainer Maria Rilke's ''The Lay of the Love and Death of Cornet Christopher Rilke'' as well as ''Schilflieder'', a cycle of five songs to poems by Nikolaus Lenau. In December 1919, through the help of Humperdinck, Weill was appointed as Kapellmeister at the newly founded Stadttheater in Lüdenscheid, where he directed opera, operetta, and singspiel for five months, and also composed a cello sonata and ''Ninon de Lenclos'', a now lost one-act operatic adaptation of a play by Ernst Hardt. From May to September 1920, Weill spent a couple of months in Leipzig, where his father had become the new director of a Jewish orphanage. Before he returned to Berlin, in September 1920, he composed ''Sulamith'', a choral fantasy for soprano, female choir, and orchestra.

Studies with Busoni

Back in Berlin, Weill had an interview with Ferruccio Busoni in December 1920. After examining some of Weill's compositions, Busoni accepted him as one of five master students in composition at the Preußische Akademie der Künste in Berlin. From January 1921 to December 1923, Weill studied music composition with him and also counterpoint with Philipp Jarnach in Berlin. During his first year he composed his first symphony, ''Sinfonie in einem Satz'', as well as the lieder ''Die Bekehrte'' (Goethe) and two ''Rilkelieder'' for voice and piano. In order to support his family in Leipzig, he also worked as a pianist in a Bierkeller tavern. In spring of 1922, Weill joined the November Group's music faction. That year he composed a psalm, a divertimento for orchestra, and ''Sinfonia Sacra: Fantasia, Passacaglia, and Hymnus for Orchestra''. On November 18, 1922, his children's pantomime ''Die Zaubernacht'' (''The Magic Night'') premiered at the Theater am Kurfürstendamm; it was the first public performance of any of Weill's works in the field of musical theatre.

Out of financial need, Weill taught music theory and composition to private students from 1923 to 1925. Among his students were Claudio Arrau, Maurice Abravanel, Henry (then known as Heinz) Jolles, and Nikos Skalkottas. Arrau, Abravenel, and Jolles, at least, would remain members of Weill's circle of friends thereafter, and Jolles's sole surviving composition predating the rise of the Nazi regime in 1933 is a fragment of a work for four pianos he and Weill wrote jointly. Weill's compositions during his last year of studies included ''Quodlibet'', an orchestral suite version of ''Die Zaubernacht'', ''Frauentanz'', seven medieval poems for soprano, flute, viola, clarinet, French horn, and bassoon, and ''Recordare'' for choir and children's choir to words from the Book of Lamentations. Further premieres that year included a performance of his ''Divertimento for Orchestra'' by the Berlin Philharmonic under the direction of Heinz Unger on April 10, 1923, and the Hindemith-Amar Quartet's rendering of Weill's ''String Quartet'', Op. 8, on June 24, 1923. In December 1923, Weill finished his studies with Busoni.

Success in the 1920s and early-1930s

In 1922 he joined the ‘Novembergruppe’, a group of leftist Berlin artists that included Hanns Eisler and Stefan Wolpe. In February 1924 the conductor Fritz Busch introduced him to the dramatist Georg Kaiser, with whom Weill would have a long-lasting creative partnership resulting in several one-act operas. At Kaiser's house in Grünheide, Weill also first met the actress and future wife Lotte Lenya in summer 1924. The couple got married twice: In 1926 and again in 1937 (following their divorce in 1933). Lenya took great care to support Weill's work, and after his death she took it upon herself to increase awareness of his music, forming the Kurt Weill Foundation.

From November 1924 to May 1929, Weill wrote hundreds of reviews for the influential and comprehensive radio program guide ''Der deutsche Rundfunk''. Hans Siebert von Heister had already worked with Weill in the November Group, and offered Weill the job shortly after becoming editor-in-chief.

Although he had some success with his first mature non-stage works (such as the String Quartet, Op. 8 or the Concerto for Violin and Wind Orchestra, Op. 12), which were influenced by Gustav Mahler, Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky, Weill tended more and more to vocal music and musical theatre. His musical theatre work and his songs were extremely popular with the wider public in Germany at the end of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s. Weill's music was admired by composers such as Alban Berg, Alexander von Zemlinsky, Darius Milhaud and Stravinsky, but it was also criticised by others: by Schoenberg, who later revised his opinion, and by Anton Webern.

His best-known work is ''The Threepenny Opera'' (1928), a reworking of John Gay's ''The Beggar's Opera'' written in collaboration with Bertolt Brecht. Engel directed the original production of ''The Threepenny Opera'' in 1928. It contains Weill's most famous song, "Mack the Knife" (''"Die Moritat von Mackie Messer"''). The stage success was filmed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst in two language versions: ''Die 3-Groschen-Oper'' and ''L'opéra de quat' sous''. Weill and Brecht tried to stop the film adaptation through a well publicised lawsuit that Weill won and Brecht lost. Weill's working association with Brecht, although successful, came to an end over politics in 1930. Although Weill associated with socialism, after Brecht tried to push the play even further into a left wing direction, Weill commented, according to his wife Lenya, that he was unable to "set the communist party manifesto to music."

Paris, London and New York

Weill fled Nazi Germany in March 1933. A prominent and popular Jewish composer, Weill was officially denounced for his socialist views and populist sympathies, and became a target of the Nazi authorities, who criticized and interfered with performances of his later stage works, such as ''Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny'' (''Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny'', 1930), ''Die Bürgschaft'' (1932), and ''Der Silbersee'' (1933). With no option but to leave Germany, he went first to Paris, where he worked once more with Brecht (after a project with Jean Cocteau failed) on the ballet ''The Seven Deadly Sins''.

On April 13, 1933 his musical ''The Threepenny Opera'' was given its premiere on Broadway, but closed after 13 performances to mixed reviews. In 1934 he completed his ''Symphony No.2'', his last purely orchestral work, conducted in Amsterdam and New York by Bruno Walter, and also the music for Jacques Deval's play, ''Marie Galante''.

A production of his operetta ''Der Kuhhandel'' (''A Kingdom for a Cow'') took him to London in 1935, and later that year he went to the United States in connection with ''The Eternal Road'', a "Biblical Drama" by Franz Werfel that had been commissioned by members of New York's Jewish community and was premiered in 1937 at the Manhattan Opera House, running for 153 performances.

Weill and his wife rented a house during the summer near Pine Brook Country Club in Nichols, Connecticut, the summer home of the Group Theatre, while working on Johnny Johnson (musical). Some of the other artists who summered there were; Elia Kazan, Harry Morgan, John Garfield, Lee J. Cobb, Will Geer, Clifford Odets, Howard Da Silva and Irwin Shaw

He and his wife moved to New York City on September 10, 1935, living first at the St. Moritz Hotel before moving on to an apartment at 231 East 62nd Street between Third and Second Avenues. Weill believed that most of his work had been destroyed. He seldom (and reluctantly) spoke or wrote German again, with rare exception (for example, letters to his parents who had escaped to Palestine).

Rather than continue to write in the same style that had characterized his European compositions, Weill made a study of American popular and stage music, and his American output, though held by some to be inferior, nonetheless contains individual songs and entire shows that not only became highly respected and admired, but have been seen as seminal works in the development of the American musical. Unique among Broadway composers of the time, Weill insisted on writing his own orchestrations (with some very few exceptions, such as the dance music in ''Street Scene''). He worked with writers such as Maxwell Anderson and Ira Gershwin, and wrote a film score for Fritz Lang (''You and Me'', 1938). Weill himself strove to find a new way of creating an American opera that would be both commercially and artistically successful. The most interesting attempt in this direction is ''Street Scene'', based on a play by Elmer Rice, with lyrics by Langston Hughes. For his work on ''Street Scene'' Weill was awarded the inaugural Tony Award for Best Original Score.

In the 1940s Weill lived in Downstate New York near the New Jersey border and made frequent trips both to New York City and to Hollywood for his work for theatre and film. Weill was active in political movements encouraging American entry into World War II, and after America joined the war in 1941, Weill enthusiastically collaborated in numerous artistic projects supporting the war effort both abroad and on the home front. He and Maxwell Anderson also joined the volunteer civil service by working as air raid wardens on High Tor Mountain between their homes in New City, New York and Haverstraw, New York in Rockland County. Weill became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1943.

Weill had ideals of writing music that served a socially useful purpose. In the US, he wrote ''Down in the Valley'', an opera including the song of the same name and other American folk songs. He also wrote a number of songs in support of the American war effort, including the satirical "Schickelgruber" (with lyrics by Howard Dietz), ''"Buddy on the Nightshift"'' (with Oscar Hammerstein) and – with Brecht again as in his earlier career – the ''"Ballad of the Nazi Soldier's Wife"'' ("Und was bekam des Soldaten Weib?"). Intended for broadcast to Germany, the song chronicled the progress of the Nazi war machine through the gifts sent to the proud wife at home by her man at the front: furs from Oslo, a silk dress from Paris etc., until finally, from Russia, she receives her widow's veil.

Apart from "Mack the Knife" and "Pirate Jenny" from ''The Threepenny Opera'', his most famous songs include "Alabama Song" (from ''Mahagonny''), "Surabaya Johnny" (from ''Happy End''), "Speak Low" (from ''One Touch of Venus''), "Lost in the Stars" (from the musical of that name), "My Ship" (from ''Lady in the Dark''), and "September Song" (from ''Knickerbocker Holiday'').

Death

Weill suffered a heart attack shortly after his 50th birthday and died on April 3, 1950 in New York City. He was buried in Mount Repose Cemetery in Haverstraw, New York. The text and music on his gravestone come from the song "A Bird of Passage" from ''Lost in the Stars'', itself adapted from a quotation from the Venerable Bede: ::''This is the life of men on earth:'' ::''Out of darkness we come at birth'' ::''Into a lamplit room, and then – '' ::''Go forward into dark again.''

:::(lyric: Maxwell Anderson)

An excerpt from Maxwell Anderson's eulogy for Weill read:

"I wish, of course, that he had been lucky enough to have had a little more time for his work. I could wish the times in which he lived had been less troubled. But these things were as they were – and Kurt managed to make thousands of beautiful things during the short and troubled time he had…"

Influence

Sixty years after his death, Weill's music continues to be performed both in popular and classical contexts. In Weill's lifetime, his work was most associated with the voice of his wife, Lotte Lenya, but shortly after his death "Mack the Knife" was established by Louis Armstrong and Bobby Darin as a jazz standard. His music has since been recorded by many performers, ranging from Nina Simone, The Doors, Judy Collins, , John Zorn, Dagmar Krause and PJ Harvey to New York's Metropolitan Opera and the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. Singers as varied as Teresa Stratas, Ute Lemper, Gisela May, Anne Sofie von Otter, Max Raabe, Dee Dee Bridgewater, and Marianne Faithfull have recorded entire albums of his music.

In 1985, Hal Willner produced ''Lost in the Stars: The Music of Kurt Weill'', a tribute album in which Weill's songs were interpreted by a variety of artists, including Todd Rundgren, Tom Waits, Lou Reed and Sting.

Amanda Palmer, singer/pianist of the 'Brechtian Punk Cabaret' duo The Dresden Dolls, has Kurt Weill's name on the front of her keyboard (a pun with the name of the instrument maker Kurzweil) as a tribute to the composer. In 1991, seminal Swiss Industrial music band The Young Gods released their album of Kurt Weill songs, The Young Gods Play Kurt Weill. In 2008, Weill's songs were performed by Canadian musicians (including Sarah Slean and Mary Margaret O'Hara) in a tribute concert as part of the first annual Canwest Cabaret Festival in Toronto. In 2009 Duke Special released an EP, entitled Huckleberry Finn, of five songs from an unfinished musical by Kurt Weill based on the novel by Mark Twain.

Compositions

Stage works

See List of works for the stage by Weill

Concert works

Cantatas

1920 : ''Sulamith'', choral fantasy for soprano, female chorus and orchestra (lost)

1927 : ''Der neue Orpheus'', cantata for soprano, solo violin and orchestra, op.16 (text: Yvan Goll)

1927 : ''Der Tod im Wald'', cantata for bass and band (originally belonged to ''Das Berliner Requiem'')

1928 : ''Das Berliner Requiem'', cantata for tenor, baritone, male chorus (or three male voices) and wind orchestra (text: Bertolt Brecht)

1929 : ''Der Lindberghflug'', cantata for tenor, baritone and bass soloists, chorus and orchestra (text: Bertolt Brecht, first version with music by Paul Hindemith and Weill, second version, also 1929, with music exclusively by Weill)

1940 : ''The Ballad of Magna Carta'', cantata for tenor and bass soloists, chorus and orchestra (text: Maxwell Anderson)

Chamber music

1918 : ''String Quartet in B minor'' (without opus number)

1923 : ''String Quartet'' op. 8

1919–1921 : ''Sonata for Cello and Piano''

Piano music

1917 : ''Intermezzo''

1937 : ''Albumblatt for Erika'' (transcription of the pastorale from ''Der Weg der Verheissung'')

Orchestral works

1919 : ''Suite for orchestra''

1919 : ''Die Weise von Liebe and Tod'', symphonic poem for orchestra after Rainer Maria Rilke (lost)

1921 : ''Symphony No.1 in one movement for orchestra''

1922 : ''Divertimento for orchestra'', op.5 (unfinished, reconstructed by David Drew)

1922 : ''Sinfonia Sacra, Fantasia, Passacaglia and Hymnus for orchestra'', op. 6 (unfinished)

1923 : ''Quodlibet'', suite for orchestra from the pantomime ''Zaubernacht'', op. 9

1925 : ''Concerto for violin and wind orchestra'', op. 12

1927 : ''Bastille Musik'', suite for wind orchestra (arranged by David Drew, 1975) from the stage music to ''Gustav III'', by August Strindberg

1929 : ''Kleine Dreigroschenmusik'', suite from ''Die Dreigroschenoper'' for wind orchestra, piano and percussion, (premiere conducted by Otto Klemperer)

1934 : ''Suite panaméenne for chamber orchestra'', (from ''Marie Galante'')

1934 : ''Symphony No. 2 in three movements for orchestra'', (premiere by Royal Concertgebouw orchestra under Bruno Walter)

1947 : ''Hatikvah'', arrangement of the Israeli National Anthem for orchestra

''Lieder'', ''Lieder'' cycles, songs and ''chansons''

1919 : ''Die stille Stadt'', for voice and piano, text: Richard Dehmel

1923 : ''Frauentanz'' op.10, Lieder cycle for soprano, flute, viola, clarinet, horn and bassoon (after medieval poems)

1923 : ''Stundenbuch'', Lieder cycle for baritone and orchestra, text: Rainer Maria Rilke

1925 : ''Klopslied'', for high voice, two piccolos and bassoon ('Ick sitze da un' esse Klops'/Berliner Lied)

1927 : ''Vom Tod im Wald'' (''Death in the Forest''), Op. 23, ballad for bass solo and ten wind instruments, text: Bertolt Brecht

1928 : ''Berlin im Licht-Song'', slow-fox, text: Kurt Weill; composed for the exhibition ''Berlin im Licht'', first performance in Wittenbergplatz (with orchestra) on October 13, and on October 16 in the Kroll Opera (with voice and piano)

1928 : ''Die Muschel von Margate: Petroleum Song'', slow-fox, text: Felix Gasbarra for the play by Leo Lania, ''Konjunktur''

1928 : ''Zu Potsdam unter den Eichen'' (''In Potsdam under the Oak Trees''), song for voice and piano, alternatively male chorus a cappella, text: Bertolt Brecht

1928 : ''Das Lied von den braunen Inseln'', text: Lion Feuchtwanger, from the play by same author, ''Petroleum Inseln''

1933 : ''Der Abschiedsbrief'', text: Erich Kästner, intended for Marlene Dietrich

1933 : ''La complainte de Fantômas'', text: Robert Desnos; for a broadcast of ''Fantômas'' in November 1933 (the music was lost, and later reconstructed by Jacques Loussier for Catherine Sauvage)

1933 : ''Es regnet'', text: Jean Cocteau (direct into German)

1934 : ''Je ne t'aime pas'', text: Maurice Magre for the soprano Lys Gauty

1934 : ''J'attends un navire'', text: Jacques Deval, from ''Marie Galante'' ; as an independent song for Lys Gauty; used for the ''Hymne der Resistance'' during the Second World War

1934 : ''Youkali'' (originally the ''Tango habanera'', instrumental movement in ''Marie Galante''), Text: Roger Fernay

1934 : ''Complainte de la Seine'', text: Maurice Magre

1939 : ''Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening'', song for voice and piano, text: Robert Frost (unfinished)

1942 : ''Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory'', patriotic song arrangements for narrator, male chorus, and orchestra, of the ''Battle Hymn of the Republic'' (text: Julia Ward Howe), ''The Star-Spangled Banner'' (text: Francis Scott Key), ''America'' (text: Samuel Francis Smith) and ''Beat! Beat! Drums!'' (text: Walt Whitman)

1942–44 : ''Propaganda Songs'', for voice and piano; written for the ''Lunch Hours Follies'' performed for the workers of a shipbuilding workshop in New York, then broadcast:

*1942 : ''Buddy on the Nightshift'', text: Oscar Hammerstein

*1942 : ''Schickelgruber'', text: Howard Dietz

1942 : ''Und was bekam des Soldaten Weib?'' (''And what was sent to the soldier's wife?''), ballad for voice and piano, text: Bertolt Brecht

1942–47 : ''Three Walt Whitman Songs'', later ''Four Walt Whitman Songs'' for voice and piano (or orchestra), text: Walt Whitman

1944 : ''Wie lange noch?'', text: Walter Mehring; premiere: Lotte Lenya

Film music

1938 : ''You and Me''

1945 : ''Where Do We Go From Here?'' text: Ira Gershwin

Select discography

Orchestral, chamber, choral and other works

''Berliner Requiem'' / ''Violin Concerto op.12'' / ''Vom Tod im Walde''. Ensemble Musique Oblique/ Philippe Herreweghe (Harmonia Mundi, 1997)

''Kleine Dreigroschenmusik'' / ''Mahagonny Songspiel'' / ''Happy End'' / ''Berliner Requiem'' / Violin Concerto op.12. /''Ballade vom Tod im Walde'' op.23 /''Pantomime I'' (from ''Der Protagonist'' op.14) London Sinfonietta, David Atherton, Nona Liddell (violin), Meriel Dickinson (mezzo-soprano), Mary Thomas (mezzo-soprano), Philip Langridge (tenor), Ian Partridge (tenor), Benjamin Luxon (baritone), Michael Rippon (bass), (Deutsche Grammophon 4594422, 1999)

''Kurt Weill à Paris, Marie Galante and other works''. Loes Luca, Ensemble Dreigroschen, directed by Giorgio Bernasconi, assai, 2000

''Melodie Kurta Weill'a i coś ponadto'' Kazik Staszewski (SP Records, 2001)

''Complete String Quartets''. Leipziger Streichquartett (MDG 307 1071-2)

Symphonies 1 & 2. BBC Symphony Orchestra, Gary Bertini (EMI, 1968)

Song collections

''Lotte Lenya sings Kurt Weill's The Seven Deadly Sins & Berlin Theatre Songs'' (Sony 1997)

''Speak Low – Songs by Kurt Weill'' – Anne Sofie von Otter, conducted by John Eliot Gardiner (Deutsche Grammophon 1995)

''Youkali: Art Songs by Satie, Poulenc and Weill''. Patricia O'Callaghan (Marquis, 2003)

''The Unknown Kurt Weill'' (Nonesuch LP D-79019, 1981) – Teresa Stratas, soprano, Richard Woitach, piano. Track list: "Nanna's Lied" (1939), "Complainte de la Seine" (1934), "Klops-Lied" (1925), "Berlin im Licht-song" (1928), "Und was Bekam des Soldaten Weib?" (1943), "Die Muschel von Margate: Petroleum Song" (1928), "Wie Lange Noch?" (1944), "Youkali: Tango Habanera" (1935?), "Der Abschiedsbrief" (1933?), "Es Regnet" (1933), "Buddy on the Nightshift" (1942), "Schickelgruber" (1942), "Je ne t'aime pas" (1934), "Das Lied von den Braunen Inseln" (1928)

Tributes

''Lost in the Stars: The Music of Kurt Weill'' – Produced by Hal Wilner, with performances by Tom Waits, Lou Reed, Sting, Marianne Faithfull, Carla Bley, Charlie Haden, John Zorn and others. (A&M Records, 1987)

''September Songs: The Music of Kurt Weill'' – also produced by Wilner, with performances by Elvis Costello, PJ Harvey, Nick Cave, William S. Burroughs, and others) (Sony Music, 1997)

Gianluigi Trovesi/Gianni Coscia: ''Round About Weill'' (ECM, 2005)

''The Young Gods Play Kurt Weill'' (Pias, April 1991), Studio recording of the songs performed live in 1989.

Ben Bagley's ''Kurt Weill Revisited'' and ''Kurt Weill Revisited, Vol. 2'', with performances by Chita Rivera, Ann Miller, Estelle Parsons, John Reardon, Tammy Grimes, Nell Carter, Arthur Siegel, and Jo Sullivan, among others. (Painted Smiles)

''An Evening of Kurt Weill'', starring Bebe Neuwirth, Roger Rees, and Larry Marshall, was performed in NYC at Alice Tully Hall. Rees directed the production.

See also

Paul Hindemith

A Kurt Weill Cabaret

LoveMusik

Bertolt Brecht

Bibliography

David Drew. ''Kurt Weill: A Handbook'' (Berkeley, Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1987). ISBN 0-520-05839-9.

Kim H. Kowalke. ''A New Orpheus: Essays on Kurt Weill'' (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1986). ISBN 0-300-03514-4.

Ronald Sanders. ''The Days Grow Short: The Life and Music of Kurt Weill'' (New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1980). ISBN 0-03-019411-3.

Donald Spoto. ''Lenya A Life'' (Little, Brown and Company 1989)

Lys Symonette & Kim H. Kowalke (ed. & trans.) ''Speak Low (When You Speak Love): The Letters of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya'' (University of California Press 1996)

David Drew (Editor), ''Über Kurt Weill'' (Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp, 1975) ''Excellent collection of texts, including an introduction by David Drew and including texts by Theodor W. Adorno'' Jürgen Schebera, ''Kurt Weill'' (Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 2000)

References

External links

Kurt Weill Foundation, including a detailed list of works

Schott Music

The OREL Foundation- Kurt Weill's biography and links to bibliography, discography and media.

Program note to Kurt Weill's Symphony No. 2 from the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra

Yale University's Gilmore Music Library has an important collection of Kurt Weill's Papers and Music, especially from his years in America

Finding aid to Universal Edition-Kurt Weill Archives – Manuscripts on deposit at the Ruth T. Watanabe Special Collections Department, Sibley Music Library, Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester

Category:1900 births Category:1950 deaths Category:People from Dessau-Roßlau Category:German Jews Category:German socialists Category:German composers Category:American composers Category:20th-century classical composers Category:Opera composers Category:American musical theatre composers Category:German musical theatre composers Category:Jewish classical musicians Category:Jewish composers and songwriters Category:People from Anhalt Category:German Jews who emigrated to the United States to escape Nazism Category:American musicians of German descent Category:Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees Category:Tony Award winners Category:People from Rockland County, New York

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