brecht singing
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Singing Brecht vs. Brecht Singing: Performance in Theory and PracticeAuthor(s): Kim H. KowalkeSource: Cambridge Opera Journal, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Mar., 1993), pp. 55-78Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/823750.
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Cambridge
pera
ournal,
,
1,
55-78
Singing
Brecht vs.
Brecht
singing:
Performance n
theory
and
practice
KIM
H. KOWALKE
During
the
last hour
we
spoke
about the
transformation f
opera
into
music
drama,
and I
explained
he
concept
of
the
Gesamtkunstwerk.o that
nobody
has
any
excuses,
I'llwriteon theblackboardnce more he namesof
Richard
Wagner
Richard trauss
Now we come
to a new
chapter.
You'll remember
hat
I
readto
you
from
Wagner's
texts.
They
always
dealtwith
gods
and
heroesand
curious
concepts
ike
forest
murmur,
magic
ire,
knights
of the
Grail,etc.,
which
you
found
rather
trange.
Then there were
some
difficult
hought
processes,
which
you
wereunable
o
follow,
andalso
certain
hings
that
you
could
not
yet
comprehend
nd are as
yet
none of
your
business.None of this
wasofmuch nteresto you....
I
have
just
playedyou
excerpts
of
music
by
Wagner
and his
followers.You
have seen
for
yourselves
hat there
are
so
many
notes
in
this
music,
I
could
not
even reach
hem
all.
You would
have
liked now and
then to
join
in
singing
the
tune,
but
this
proved
impossible.
You also
noticed
that this
music made
you
feel
sleepy
or
drunk,
as
alcohol
or
other
drugs
might
have
done. But
you
don't want
to
go
to
sleep.
You want
to hear
music
you
can
comprehend
without
special
explanation,
music
you
can
readily
absorb
and
sing
with
relativeease.
...
Nowadays
there are matters
of
greater
nterest o
all,
and if
music
cannot
be
placed
n the
serviceof
society
as a
whole,
it
forfeits
ts
right
to
exist n
today's
world.
WRITETHISDOWN :Music s no longeramatter f the few.
Thus
Kurt
Weill
began
his
response
on
Christmas
Day,
1928,
to
the
Berliner
Tageblatt's
equest
of
prominent
artists
(including
Otto
Klemperer,
Heinrich
Mann
and
Annette
Kolb)
to
explain
their
work,
as
if
to
'a
class
of
intelligent
urban
twelve-year-olds
who
read
newspapers,
interested
themselves in
current
events
Earlier
ersions
f
this
essay
were
readat
'German
Literature
ndMusic:
An
Aesthetic
Fusion',
University
f
Houston
2-4
March
1989)
nd
he Annual
Meeting
f the
American
Musicological
Society,Chicago 6-10November1991). am ndebtedo several olleaguesortheirhelpful
comments,
specially
o
Stephen
Hinton's
ormal
esponse
n
Chicago.
A
slightly
evised
ersion
will
appear
n
Music nd
Performance
uring
heWeimar
epublic,
d.
Bryan
Gilliam,
o be
published
y
Cambridge
niversity
Press.
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Kim
H.
Kowalke
and
had a keen
appetite
or
information'.1
pparently
ot himself
mmune
rom
Dreigroschen-fever,
lightheaded
Weill
brazenlypitched
his and
Bertolt
Brecht's
brand
of
epic
theatrewith this
ill-considered
loy,
parodying
tyrannical
russian
schoolmaster'sesson.
The soonto bewidelyquotedarticle oncluded:
The theatrical movement
that most
explicitly
meets the artistic demands
of our
time
was
founded
by
Bertolt Brecht
-
open
parenthesis:
Bertolt
Brecht,
the
originator
of
epic
drama - close
parenthesis.
Weill
has
recognised
that this
movement
offers the
musician
a wealth of
new,
surprising
tasks.
Brecht and Weill
have examined the
question
of
the
proper
role
of music in the
theatre.
They
have come to
the realisation
that
music
should
not advance
or underscore the
action on
stage,
that it
fulfills its
genuine
function
only
when it
interrupts
the action at
appropriate
moments.
Make a note
of
the most
important
result
to
date,
the
concept
of the
gestic
character of
music,
which
we'll
study
in
detail
next
year
when those of
you
who
intend to become
professional
critics will
have left
us.
STAND UP
We will now
sing
t16:
_I
h
I. .
h
.h_
J
h
J
I
Der Mcnsch
lebt durch den
Kopf,
der
Kopf
reicht
ihm nicht
aus,
ver
-
P
p
i ID p
P
o
I)pp
such' es
nur,
von
dei
-
nem
Kopf
lebt
hoch
-
stens
ei
- ne
Laus.
[Man
lives
by
his wits
/
but wits
will
not
suffice. /
Inspect
his
head to
find
his
wits
/ and all
you'll
find is
lice.]
As his
closing polemical
plug,
Weill
had
chosen the
'verse' from the
first
strophe
of
Peachum's
'Das Lied von
der
Unzulanglichkeit
menschlichen
Strebens' from
Die Dreigroschenoper,since September a runaway hit at the Theater am Schiffbauer-
damm in
Berlin. The
following
spring,
that same
strophic
ballad was
one of
the
first 'vocals'
from
the show
to
be
recorded
and
commercially
released.
The
singer
Kurt
Weill,
'Der Musiker
Weill',
Berliner
Tageblatt,
5
December
1928;
rpt.
in
Kurt
Weill,
Musik
und
Theater:
Gesammelte
chriften,
d.
Stephen
Hinton
and
Jiirgen
Schebera
Berlin,
1990),
52-4;
partially
translated n
The
Musical
Times,
70
(1
March
1929),
224;
complete
English
translation
and
facsimile of
original
clipping
with
Arnold
Schoenberg's
marginal
commentary
in
Alexander
Ringer,
'Schoenberg,
Weill
and
Epic
Theater',
Journal
of
the
Arnold
Schoenberg
Institute,
4
(une
1980),
77-98
(rpt.
as
'Relevance and
the
Future of
Opera:
Arnold
Schoenberg
and
Kurt
Weill',
in
Ringer,
Arnold
Schoenberg:
he
Composer
s
Jew
[Oxford,
1990],
83-102).
For
additional
commentary
on
the
essay,
see
David
Drew's
Letter to
the
Editor
in
the
Kurt
Weill
Newsletter,
5
(Fall
1987),
3;
andKim
H.
Kowalke's
notes
in A New
Orpheus:
ssays
on Kurt
Weill
(New
Haven,
1986),
150f. The
cliche
comparing
the
effects
of
Wagner's
music
to those
of
alcohol
was far
from new
in
1928:
Nietzsche had
already
so
characterised t
in
Der Fall
Wagner
1888).
56
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Singing
Brecht
vs. Brecht
singing
on that
recording
was Brecht himself. The
piece
on the reverse
of the
shellac
78 was the
song's
motivic
retrograde,
he
'Moritat
vom Mackie
Messer',
the
other
sixteen-bar
strophic
ballad from Die
Dreigroschenoper
uited
to
Brecht's vocal
capa-
bilities.2
Definitely
not
beautiful,
yet
charismatic
and
unforgettable
in
effect,
Brecht's
rendition
resembled
the
barrel-organaccompanied
Bdnkelsdnger
e
had
witnessed in his
youth
at
Augsburg
fairs.3 His
razor-sharp
enunciation slices
the text's
syntax
to
reveal
new
levels
of
sense,
while the rattler-rolled r's
roil
the
otherwise almost
stoic surface
of
his
nasal,
coarse tone. These two
Balladen
are the
only
available
recordings
of Brecht
singing.
That is
regrettable
f
only
because
eyewitnesses
to
his
mesmerising
ive
perform-
ances
-
whether in
theatre,
cabaret or brothel
-
concur in their
accounts of
a
magnetism (not
to
mention
an
entourage)
we
now
expect only
of
rock
stars.4
And
when he
stopped
singing
in
public, performance
became no
less
important.
Recognising that the 'text' of music-theatre is fully assembled and experienced
only
in
performance,
Brecht
adhered to
the 'inflexible rule
that
the
proof
of
the
pudding
is in the
eating'.5
The
adjective
'Brechtian', therefore,
came
early
on
to denote
not
only
his
idiosyncratic
contributions
to
playwriting, poetry,
language
and
dramaturgical heory,
but also
-
and
perhaps
more
so
-
to
performancepractice:
modes
and
techniques
of
acting,
directing,
lighting
and
singing.
He
claimed 'to
be
thinking
always
of
actual
delivery',
how
his
authorialvoice would be
mediated
by
the
performer.6
Many
of the
tangled
theoretical commentaries that he
drafted
before
1935
address
problems
of
performance;
they
were
intended as
correctives
to
what he
perceived
as
failed
practice.
Yet that
practice
remains
a
surer
guide
2
The
song,
billed on the
label of
Orchestrola2131
as 'Moritat'
and
'Balladevon
der
Unzulanglichkeit',
were
recorded n
May
1929
and released
shortly
after. Carola
Neher's
'Barbara
Song'
and
'Seerauberjenny'
were
recorded at
the sametime and
appeared
as
Orchestrola 2132. In
both
cases,
the
orchestra s
unidentified;
although
similar
in
instrumentationto the
Lewis
Ruth
Band,
conducted
by
Theo
Mackeben
n
the
original
production,
the
recorded
arrangements
are
not Weill's.
Brecht's
renditions,
said
to
have been
strongly
influenced
by
the
Bavarian
clown Karl
Valentin,
have been re-releasedmost
recently
on
compact
disc
(Mastersound
DFCDI-110).
One
suspects
that
Weill
suggestedcoupling
the
two
ballads;
n
composing
Kleine
Dreigroschenmusik
n December
1928,
he had
already
combined
the
closely
related
songs
within a
single
movement,
and it
was one
of
the four
Otto
Klemperer
had
recorded
shortly
after
the
official
premiere
in
February
1929.
Bernard
Reich
has
noted:
'Brechtpickedfrom the deep impressions eft by the barrelorgan
singer
one
major
element
-
one
might
call this the
naivete
of
representation....
The
composers
of
fairground
Moritaten
neither allow
themselves to
be
led
astrayby
reflections on the
material,
nor
do
they
let
themselves be
overly
specific through
the use of
minute nuances
n
the
material.'
See
John
Fuegi,
Bertolt
Brecht:
Chaos,
According
o Plan
(Cambridge,
1987),
25.
A
teenage
friend
recalled hat
'Brecht
did not
sing
in a
polished way,
but with a
passion
that
swept
others
along,
drunk from
his own
verses,
ideas,
and creations as
other
people
would
be
drunk
from
wine,
and his
singing
made those who
heard
him
drunkalso'.Carl
Zuckmayer
remembered hat
when
'Brecht
picked up
the
guitar,
the hum of
conversation
ceased,
while all
around
him
people
sat as
though caught
up
in a
magic
spell'.
See
Fuegi,
4, 26,
40.
John
Willett
deemed
the
maxim so
central
to an
understanding
of Brecht's work
that
it
appears
as
the
epigram
for
Brecht
on
Theatre
New
York,
1964).
Fuegi
(see
n.
3),
16
and
49,
notes
that as a directorBrechtcould anddid demonstrateto his actors nuancesof
any
role and
as a
lyricist
he
tried to
show to
his
musical collaborators
what he
expected
from a
song.
6
Bertolt
Brecht,
'Uber
reimlose
Lyrik
mit
unregelmassigenRhythmen',
Das
Wort,
3
(March
1939);
rpt.
in
Gesammelte
Werke,XIX,
395-403.
57
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KimH. Kowalke
to
understanding
is work in the theatrethan its
fragmentary
nd
frequently
self-contradictory
x
post
acto
theory.7
Brecht
asserted
hat
in
both
heory
and
practice
t was music hat 'made
possible
something
we had
ong
since
ceased o take or
granted, amely
he
'poetic
heatre'.8
Music
provided
the means
by
which Brecht could reclaim and refunc-
tion the
presentational
odeof
address,
ong
a standard onvention
n
most
forms
of music
heatrebut discarded
y
moderndramaafter he 'fourthwall'
had
been
dismantled
y
naturalism nd
realism.His
relationship
o
music,
therefore,
was
as
essential
as
it
was
complex.
Although
little
interested
n musical
repertoire
or issues
xtraneous
o his own
work
for the
theatre,
Brecht
irst
gainedwidespread
recognition
hrough
he
musical
ettings
of his
works:
opera
ibrettos,
plays
with
music,
a
ballet,
dramatic
cantatas,
an
oratorio,
musical
films,
even
commercial
jingles.
By
1931,
the
music critic
Hans Mersmann could
proclaim:
'New
Music in Germany has found its poet. This poet is Bertolt Brecht.'9 Of his
nearly
fifty
completed
dramatic
works,
only
one
lacks
music. More
than 600
of
his 1500
poems
refer to
musical
genres
in
both
title and
structure;
intended
as
songs,
most
were
set
to
music
during
his lifetime.
Subsequently,despite
copyright
restrictions,
there have been
well over a
thousand
additional
settings, many by
major
composers.
Music is a
pillar
so central to
many
of his theoretical
constructs,
and so
determinant for the
shape,
diction and
delivery
of
his
texts,
that
Brecht's
legacy
cannot be
fully
understood or
properly
assessedwithout
reference to it.10
Confidence
in
his own
musicality
allowed
him
to
influence
settings
of
his
works,
to criticise
compositions
by
the
less
independent
of
his
collaborators,
and even
to offer them
his own
melodies,
of which
almost
100
survive.
The
small
number
of
multiple
settings
of
Brecht's
poems during
his
lifetime
attests to the
authority
'It is hard
o thinkof another
xample nywhere, y any
author,
whichhas
hadan
equally
potent
or
misleading
ffect....
The
problem
s not
only
how
to
readandevaluate
recht's
theoretical
works,
but how
to deal
with the confusions
hat
hesehavecreatedn the
ranks
of his
interpreters.'
ildaMeldrum
rown,
Leitmotiv nd
Drama:
Wagner,
recht,
nd
he
Limits
f
'Epic'
heatre
Oxford,
1991),
8f.Brecht's
oluminous
heoretical
writings
bout
theatre
re
unsystematic
nd
nconsistent.
he shifts
n
both
theory
and
practice
ver
he
four
decades
f
his career ohere
only
if
one considers
he
very
different
esources
vailable
to
him
at
differenttagesn his lifeandhisever-changingorldviews.Thefact, orexample,
that
Verfremdung
s
routinely pplied
o
production
nd
criticism f
Brecht's
ntireceuvre
even
hough
he didnot invoke he
concept
until 1935 hould
erveas
amplewarning
o
thosewho
would
assemble unified
esthetic ode
by
combining
tatementsrom
different
periods.
See
Fuegi
n.
3),
51.
8
Brecht,
Uberdie
Verwendung
on
Musik
urein
episches
Theater',
Gesammelte
Werke,
V,
472-82;
rpt.
in
Joachim
Lucchesi
and
Ronald K.
Shull,
Musik
bei
Brecht
Berlin,
1988),
157f.;
translated
s
On
the
Use of Music
n an
Epic
Theatre',
n
Willett
see
n.
5),
84-90.
9
Hans
Mersmann,
Die
neueMusik
und hre
Texte',Melos,
0
(May/June 931),
171.Eisler
recalled,
owever,
hat Brechtwas
nterestedn
music
only
in how
it
might
be
useful or
his
theatre'.Lucchesi
nd
Shull,
86.
Normative
bstacleso
translations
redwarfed
y
those
whichBrecht's
musico-dramatic
works
present,
nd
he most
recent
ditionof
the textsof
these
works Bertolt recht
Werke:
GroLfeommentierteerliner ndFrankfurterusgabe,d.WernerHecht,JanKnopf,Werner
Mittenzwei,
Claus-Detlef
Miiller
Berlin
nd
Frankfurt/Main,
988)
demonstrates
he
editorial
omplications
osedby
musical
ettings
f
Brecht's
exts,
n thatthe
'authorised'
literary
ersions
differ
markedly
rom
hose
published
nd
performed
ith the musical
cores.
58
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Singing
Brecht vs.
Brecht
singing
of
those
composed
in direct collaboration
with
him.
Today
the
songs
are
frequently
credited as
'Brecht's'
rather than the
composers'.
Not even
Goethe overshadowed
the
musicians
who
set
his
texts so
overwhelmingly.
Unfortunately
the
attendant
assumption,
that
composers
who
worked
closely
with him were
transmittingBrecht's own
readings
of his
poems,
has limited much
commentary
to uncritical
application
of
Brechtian
heory,
often
in
dogmatic
demonstrationsof the fulfilment
of its
propositions
ratherthan
in
genuine
critical examination.1
While
very
much under the
spell
of
Frank Wedekind's cabaret
models,
Brecht's
first
poetic
impulses
were
'songs
to the
guitar,
sketching
out verses
at
the
same
time
as
the
music' and
primitively notating
them with
his own
ecphonetic sym-
bols.12
Many
of
these
early poems
were intended
to be
sung
either in
private
to
a
small
group
of
friends
or
in
informal
public
settings,
hence their
colloquial
turns of
phrase
and
casual
appropriation
of
traditional
forms.
The
songs
did not
really exist as independent texts, because the author's, composer's, performer's
and
protagonist's
personae
coalesced
into
a
single
voice
-
Brecht's. Carl
Zuckmayer
described that voice as 'raw
and
trenchant,
sometimes
crude
as
a
ballad
singer's,
with
an unmistakable
Augsburg
accent,
sometimes
almost
beautiful,
soaring
with-
out
any
vibrato,
each
syllable,
each semitone
being
quite
clear
and
distinct'.13
Prior to 1925
Brecht
himself handled
the
music
for
all
productions
of his
plays.
Each
of them
included several
songs
in which
his musical voice was
only
a
slight
extension of
his
poetic
one.
Some are
contrafacta,
in
which one or
more
pre-existent
melodies are
stripped
of
their
original
lyrics
to
allow a
new text
to
engage
in
provocative
dialogue
with
the
images
associated with the too-familiar
music,
'put-
See,
for
example,
Fritz
Hennenberg,
ed.,
Das
groBe
Brecht-Liederbuch
Frankfurt/Main,
1984);
Jiirgen Engelhardt,
Gestusund
Verfremdung:
tudien
zum
Musiktheater
ei
Strawinsky
und
Brecht/Weill
Munich, 1984);John
Willett,
'Brecht and the
Musicians',
n
Brecht n
Context:
Comparative
pproaches
London, 1984);
Ulrich
Weisstein,
'Von reitendenBoten
und
singenden
Holzfallern:Bertolt Brechtund
die
Oper',
in
Brechts
Dramen:
Neue
Interpretationen,
ed.
Walter
Hinderer
(Stuttgart,1984),
266-99;
Albrecht
Diimling,
Latft
euch
nicht
verfuhren:
Brechtund
die Musik
Munich,
1985);
Michael
John
T.
Gilbert,
BertoltBrecht's
triving
or
Reason,
Even in
Music:A
CriticalAssessment
New
York,
1988);Jost
Hermand,
'Kurt
Weill
und
andere
"Brecht-Komponisten"
,
in BeredteT6ne:
Musik
m
historischen
rozess
Frankfurt/
Main,
1991).
Notable
exceptions
include Lucchesi'sand
Shull's
Musik
bei
Brecht,which,
apart
from
its
lengthy
introduction,
has
few
critical
aspirations.
The short
monograph
of
Kenneth
Fowler,
Received
Truths:
BertoltBrecht nd the Problem
of
Gestusand Musical
Meaning New
York,
1991),
confronts this
issue head-on.In his
perceptive survey
of Eisler's
music,
'Eisler
and
Austrian
Music: Notes
for the
Almeida
Festival',
Tempo
June/September
1987),
24-35,
David Drew
pointed
out a
corollary
of this
critical
approach
o
'Brecht's
composers':
For
many years
the
parallactic
view of
Brecht's musical
collaborators
hat
rendered hem
figuratively
and
even
functionally indistinguishable
rom Brecht himself was
supposed
to
justify
the
idea that
resemblances
between
(for
instance)
the music
of
Weill and of Eisler
were
simply
attributable o the influence of
Brecht.'
(For
the
most blatant
exposition
of such
a
naive
view,
see
Willett's
'Brecht and
the
Musicians',
176f.)
12
Bertolt
Brecht,
Arbeitsjournal, August
1938;
quoted by
Lucchesi and
Shull
(see
n.
8),
175.
Brecht's
primitive
notation
used no
time
signature
or bar
lines,
as the
rhythm
was
to follow
that of
the
words,
which were
not to be distorted when
sung.
Some
of
Brecht's
texts are
hardly
more
than
tropes
on
songs by
Wedekind;
compare,
for
example,
Wedekind's
'Ich
war ein Kindvon fiinfzehn Jahren'(Lautenlieder:3Liedermit eigenenundfremdenMelodien
[Munich,
1920])
with
Brecht's
'Surabaya ohnny'
and
'Nannas Lied'
('Meine
Herren,
mit
siebzehn
Jahren'),
the latter
set
by
both Eisler
and Weill.
13
Zuckmayer'sdescription
of
Brecht'scabaret
performances
s
quoted
by
Willett
(see
n.
11),
152.
59
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Kim
H.
Kowalke
ting quotation
marks,
s t
were,
around lot thatwas
cheap,
xaggerated,
nreal'.14
Morenumerous
re
strophic
balladswithneutral
accompaniments
nd
primitive,
recitative-like
melodies hat ensure extual
pre-eminence.
t their most
successful
they reifiedBrecht'sgoal: theymustbe cold,plastic,unflinching nd, iketough
nutshells
when
they
get caught
in
dentures,
knock out a few
of the
listener's
teeth'.15
recht's arliest ritical
champion,
Herbert
Ihering,
wrote of
Trommeln
in
der
Nacht
hat
one
really
felt
'the
whip-driven hythms
of
his sentences'
nly
when Brecht
sang
and
accompanied
imselfon the
guitar.
n
response
audiences
'whistled,
yelled,
howled and
applauded';
hey
were
anything
but
cool,
rational
or
'distanced'.16
et
Brecht
admitted
hat
in these
first
plays
'music
functioned
in a
fairly
conventional
way.
There
was
usually
ome
naturalistic
retext
or
each
musical
piece'.17
n his
earliest,
quasi-autobiographical lay,
for
example,
the drunk-
en nihilist
poet
Baal
sings
four
of
Brecht's
songs
in a
seedy
night-club.
But Brecht came to realise that what Hanns Eislerwould later call his 'colossal
musicality
without
technique'
would be
inadequate
to
address
music's
role
in
the
non-Aristotelian,
'dialectic'
drama
he
was
beginning
to
formulate.18
Unable
to write both
libretto
and
score
as
Wagner
had
done,
Brecht
after
1924
regularly
recruited
or
was
recruited
by professional
composers,
to whom
he tried to
harness
his musical
ntuitions and
aspirations.
The
first of
these,
Franz
S. Bruinier
1905-28),
apparently
did not
assist
much
beyond
such
practical
asks as
re-notating,
arranging
and
orchestrating
some
of
Brecht's
songs.19
Dead
from
tuberculosis at
age
23,
Bruinierwas
followed
briefly by
Erwin
Piscator'shouse
composer,
Edmund Meisel
(1894-1930),who arrangedthe 'Mann ist Mann Song' for the poet himself to
sing
in the
Berlin
Radio
1927
production
that
brought
him
to
Weill's critical
attention.20
When
Weill
and
Brecht met
shortly
thereafter,
they immediately
explored
the
possibility
of
writing
an
opera
together,
then
collaborated on a half
dozen other
large-scale
projects during
the
four
years
of the
rise and fall
of
plans
14
Quoted
by
Willett
see
n.
11),
152.
Willett
dentifies number
f
popular
unesBrecht
borrowed,ncludingmost ncongruouslyoth There's Tavern n theTown'and Un bel
dl'
for
the
'Benares
ong'.
15
Bertolt
Brecht,
Tagebuch,
6
August
1920;
quoted
by
Lucchesi
nd
Shull
see
n.
8),
97.
16
Berlin
B6rsen-Courier,
December
923;
quoted
and ranslated
y Fuegi
see
n.
3),
15.
See
also
Hanns
HennyJahn's
escription
f the 1926
Berlin
production
f
Baal,
54-5.
17
Brecht,
Uberdie
Verwendung
on
Musik iirein
episches
Theater',
rans.
Willett,
Brecht
on
Theatre
n. 5),
84.
18
Eisler's
ommentwas
recorded
y
Hans
Bunge,Fragen
iemehr
uiber recht: annsEisler
im
GesprachMunich,
970),
10.
Brecht
ntroducedhe
descriptive
erm
dialectic'
n
the
'Anmerkungen
ur
Dreigroschenoper',
ersuche,
(1931),
but
seldomused t
thereafter ntil
the endof his
career.
ee
Willett,
Brecht n Theatre
n. 5),
46.
For a
biographical
ketch
of
Bruinier,
who wasa
student f
Egon
Petriand
a friendof
Klabund
Carola
Neher's
husband),
ee
JoachimLucchesi,
Franz
S.
Bruinier: recht's
rster
Komponist',
Das
Magazin
Berlin],
(January
985),
6-70.Bruinier's
ettings
f nine
songs
survive n the
Bertolt-Brecht-Archiv,
erlin.
20
Weill
previewed
nd
reviewed he
production
or
Der
deutsche
undfunk
n
March
1928;
both
are
reprinted
n
Kurt
Weill,
Musik
nd Theater
see
n.
1),
248-50.
60
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Singing
Brecht
vs. Brecht
singing
and
prospects
for
Mahagonny.
Brecht's briefer association
with Paul
Hindemith
was rancorous and less
productive,
yielding only
the Weill-Hindemith version
of Der
Lindberghflug
nd its
sequel,
the
lehrstuick,
oth
dating
from
1929.21
Only
in
1930,
after
setting
himself
the task of
extracting
an
economically
deter-
mined aesthetic
system
from the conditions of the class
struggle,
did Brecht find
an
ideal musical
colleague
in
Hanns
Eisler,
who more than
matched
Brecht's
new
commitment
to
art
for
ideology's
sake. What Ernst
Bloch labelled
the
'radical
monotony'
of Eisler's
'post-Schoenberg'
music made
it the
perfect
counterpart
to
Brecht's
unrhymed,
irregular
verse.
If
Brecht,
as Carl
Friedrich
Zelter had
characterised
Goethe,
'had a
melody
of his own
hovering
in his
mind',
then
Eisler
qualified
as
the
playwright's
Zelter,
his musical
alter-ego:
I
feel
your compositions
re
absolutely
t
one with
my
poems:
he music
imply
ifts
themup to the heightsikegas nflates balloon.Withothercomposers firsthave
to takenote of how
they've
reated
he
song,
what
hey've
madeof it.22
Although
Eisler had
independently
set several
of Brecht's
texts,
their
full-scale
partnership
started
with Die
Massnahme,
and would
span nearly
three
decades.
During
this
period
Brecht formulated and
reformulatedhis theories
on the
nature
and function of music
within the
epic
model
in
a series
of
prescriptions
to
which
Eisler's music
(for
their collaborative
works)
conforms
more
closely
than
any
other.23But
during
the fifteen
years
of exile when Brecht
produced
most
of his
finest
plays,
he
rarely
collaborated
with
composers
to createentire musico-dramatic
works,
as
he
had
in the
previous
decade.
Rather,
music
played
a minor
role,
the
dramatist
maintaining
full
control
by calling
in
musicians
only
for
certain
numbers
-
after the
script
had
been
completed.
Among
these lesser
figures
were
the
Finnish
composer-conductor
Simon Parmet
(1897-1969),
Franz Lehar'smusi-
21
When
Brecht
published
a
revised text of the lehrstuck n
1930,
he retitled it Das Badener
Lehrstuck omEinverstdndnis.Hindemith alsoset Brecht'spoem 'Uber dasFriihjahr' or
male
chorus in 1929.
Brecht
vehemently disagreed
with Hindemith's
emphasis
on the
opportunity
for collective
amateur
music-making
Gemeinschaftsmusik)
ithin the new
genre
of
the
learningplay
and his
de-emphasis
of
the text's content and
significance.
Their
confrontation
at
the 1930 New
Music Festival in Berlin over Die Massnahme
precluded
the
possibility
of
any
further collaboration.
See
Gilbert
(n. 11),
89-96.
22
Letter
from Zelter
to
Goethe,
7
April
1820;
Goethe to
Zelter,
11
May
1820;
quoted by
Wilhelm
Bode,
Die Tonkunst n
GoethesLeben
Berlin,
1912),
180f.
23
Eisler's
Brecht-compositions
are
only
one
component
within a
large
and diverse
ceuvre,
and
the
Eisler of
the
String
Quartet
(1939)
differsfrom the
composer
of Die Mutter
1931)
as
much as the
Weill of
Symphony
No.
2
(1933-4)
from the
composer
of
Lady
in theDark
(1940).
David Drew
observes that
'neither the
power
nor
the
extraordinary
durability
of
Eisler's
collaboration with Brecht
would have been
attainablebut for the
self-awareness nd
the
mastery
he had firstachieved within
Schoenberg's
orbit and then
developed
on the
tangential
path
he took in
1927.
Theoretically,
the
post-Schoenbergian
angent
presupposed
the
possibility
of
re-entry.
Eisler
repeatedly
availedhimself of
that
possibility.'
See
'Eisler'
(n.
11),
29.
61
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9/25
KimH. Kowalke
cal
executor
Paul
Burkhard
1911-77),
the Swiss
composer
Huldreich
Georg
Friih
(1903-45)
and most
prolifically
Paul
Dessau
(1894-1979),
Brecht's
principal
com-
poser
at the Berliner
Ensemble.24
During
the last
eight years
of Brecht's
life,
collaborations
with
Carl
Orff
and Gottfried
von
Einem terminated
prematurely,
while that with
Rudolf
Wagner-Regeny
1903-69)
yielded only
two
scores.
None
achieved the Mitarbeiter tatus Brecht
reserved
only
for Weill and
Eisler,
who
had
not
only supplied
music but
also contributed
to
the texts of their
collaborative
works.
At
the time
they began
working
with
Brecht,
both
composers
had
already
rejected
the aesthetic
assumptions
and hierarchies
that Modernism had
inherited
and
left
largely
unaltered.
By
1925,
each
was
in
Berlin
seeking
in his
own
way
to
transcend
he
self-preoccupation, ubjectivity
and
ultimate isolation of the
New
Music,
and to
forge
new
contacts
with
mass culture
and mass
audiences or
socially
engaged
musical art.
Although Brecht consideredEisler'ssettings to be 'the tests of his poems, what
productions
were to
his
plays',
he
credited Weill
with 'first
providing
what
[he]
had needed for the
stage'.25
The
four
years
of
their
nearly
continuous
collaboration
were
transitional for
Brecht;
he
concentrated
on
Marxist
studies
begun
in
1926,
published
his first
collection
of
poetry,
and
completed
dramatic works
in which
music was essential
ratherthan
incidental. It was in
these
pieces
of
socially
engaged
music-theatre hat the
montage
techniques
eventually
called 'Brechtian'
were
deve-
loped
and
the
dramaturgical
oundations of
'epic'
drama aid. The
four
cornerstones
of
that
new
theatre
comprised
an
unsentimental,
sachlich
mode of
presentation;
development
of new
didactic
genres
for
production
outside
the
state-subsidised
system;
adaptation
of
cinematic
techniques;
and
radical
separation
of
the
elements.
With
this
last Brecht tried to
avoid the
'muddle'
of
a
Wagnerian
Gesamtkunstwerk,
where the
constituents are
fused and
consequently
degraded.
He
hoped
to
bypass
what he
called 'the
great
struggle
for
supremacy
among
words,
music
and
produc-
tion
-
which
always brings
up
the
question
"which
is
the
pretext
for
what?":
24
The cores nwhichBrechtollaboratedor heoriginalroductionsf Mutterourageund hre
Kinder
1941),
Der
kaukasischereidekreis
1948)
nd
Der
gute
Menschon
Sezuan
(1943)
chievedittle
dentity
fter
he
plays'
remieres
nd
re eldom
sedn
performance
today.
aul
Dessau
ubsequently
rote
new cores
or
each,
s
wellas or
DieAusnahme
und
die
Regel
1948)
nd
Herr
Puntila
undsein
KnechtMatti
1949).
t is
important
o
distinguish
etweenhose
works n
which
Brecht
ollaboratedith
omposersalmost
exclusively
eill nd
Eisler)
n the
actual
lanning
nd
drafting,
nd hose
o which
he
composer
ontributed
nly
ex
postacto
ncidental
usic
ubsequent
o the
conception
nd
execution
f
the
structurend
ontent
f thework. n
he
case f the
ormer,
joint'
works
from he
Mahagonnyongspiel1927)
hrough
Die
Rundk6pfe
nddie
Spitzkopfe1936),
t
would e
nconceivable
o
substitute
new core or
he
original,
hich
asnow
become
common
ractice
or he
atter
roup.
25
Brecht's
omment
boutEislers
quoted
y
Willett,
recht
n
Context
see
n.
11),
162;
is
appraisalfWeill ppearsntheArbeitsjournal,October940;eprintedyLucchesind
Shull
see
n.
8),
182.
Other han he
wo
cantatas'
omTod
m
Wald ndDas
Berliner
Requiem,
eill
omposed
utside
he heatre
nly
wo
songs
with
exts
by
Brecht.
isler,
in
contrast,
asa
prolificomposer
f
independent
ieder,
many
with exts
by
Brecht.
62
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Singing
Brecht vs.
Brecht
singing
is the
music the
pretext
for the
events
on the
stage,
or are these the
pretext
for
the
music?'26
That
question
was
especially
bothersome to Brecht on the local
level,
within
the
hybrid
genre
central
to
'epic'
dramaturgy
called
Song
-
the
new
genre
that
MarcBlitzstein characterisedn 1930 as 'an outlandish mixture of German beer-
drinking
ditty
and American
ballad'.27
On the one
hand,
music's
mportance
within
the
epic
model
required
collaboration with
professional composers.
On
the
other,
Brecht
thought they
would
probably
insist on 'music
having
its own
meaning'
and resist his
control
over
composition
and
performance.
Subscribing
to a
firm
but
unarticulated
belief
that music is indeed
capable
of
communicating
its
own
non-verbal
content,
Brecht found all 'autonomous' music
suspect,
particularly
attributes
associated
with the
nineteenth-century
tradition
of
espressivo,ncluding
the
opulence
of
operatically
trained
voices
and
the narcotic
sensuality
of
string-
dominated orchestration:
A
singleglance
at the audienceswho attendconcerts
s
enough
o show how
impossible
it
is to make
any political
or
philosophical
se
of musicthat
produces
uch effects.
We
see entire
rows of human
beings
ransported
nto a
peculiar
tateof
intoxication,
wholly
passive,
self-absorbed
nd,
according
o
all
appearances, oped.
Their
gapes
and
stares
signal
hat these
people
are
rresolutely,
elplessly,
t the
mercy
of unchecked motional
urges....
Suchmusichas
nothing
but
purelyculinary
mbitionseft.
It
seduces he listener
into an
enervating,
ecause
nproductive,
ct
of
enjoyment.28
He was well aware that
poetry
had seldom been able to withstand treatment
by
'serious music
[that]
stubbornly
clings
to
lyricism
and cultivates
expression
for
its own
sake'.29
Brecht distrusted musicians
in
general
because,
he
said,
they
tended to
view
texts
as
'series
of
words that
are
there to
give
them
the
opportunity
26
Bertolt
Brecht and
Peter
Suhrkamp,
Anmerkungen
zur
Oper
Aufstieg
und Fall der
Stadt
Mahagonny',Versuche, (1930);
trans. in
Willett, ed.,
Brecht
on
Theatre
see
n.
5),
37.
Brecht
continues:
'So
long
as the
arts are
supposed
to be "fused"
together,
the
various elements
will
all be
equally
degraded,
and each will
act as a mere "feed" to
the rest. The
process
of fusion
extends
to
the
spectator,
who
gets
thrown into
the
melting
pot
too
and
becomes
a
passive
(suffering)part
of the
total work
of art. Witchcraftof
this sort must of
course
be
fought against.
Whatever is
intended
to
produce
hypnosis,
is
likely
to induce sordid
intoxication,
or creates
fog,
has
got
to be
given up.'
Note
that
the
question
'Which is the
pretext
for
what?' is
precisely
the one that
also
occupied Wagner
throughout
his
career;
his own
changing
verdict
prompted
him
to reverse the
thesis of
Oper
und Drama
(that
music
is the
means
and drama
he
end)
and to disown
the
expression
'music
drama'
by formulating
the
alternative
ersichtlich
gewordene
Taten der Musik'
(events
in
music made
visible)
in
'Uber
die
Benennung
"Musikdrama"'
1872).
For an
extended
discussion of this
point,
see,
with caution
on
musical
issues,
Brown,
Leitmotiv and
Drama
(n.
7).
27
Letterfrom MarcBlitzstein to StellaSimon, 28January1930;quoted by Eric A. Gordon,
Mark
theMusic:
The
Life
and
Work
of
Marc
Blitzstein
New
York,
1989),
55.
28
'Uber
die
Verwendung
von Musik fiir
ein
episches
Theater',
Gesammelte
Werke,XV,
480.
29
Ibid.;
trans.
Willett,
Brechton
Theatre
see
n.
5),
87.
63
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KimH.
Kowalke
to
enjoy
themselves'.30
ecausemusic ends
o stimulate
he listener
o
seductively
and
potently
-
as
though
without
mediation
he feared hat
his
poems
would
becomemere
material nd
be embracedwithout
critical
eflection.31
onsequently
his own
voice,
no
longer present
as
performer,
would be
appropriated y
the
composer.32
He
instinctively
realisedwhat
EdwardT.
Cone would
explicitly
formulate:
in
most
encountersbetween
poetry
and
music,
poetry
can
become
the more
powerful
of the
two
only by
the
intentional
cquiescence
r
the
uninten-
tional
incompetence
f the
composer'.33
o
change
his,
Brecht
ried to
suggest
a new
model,
one that
challenged
what he
fearedwas
fundamentalo the
very
natureof
music.
f
it were
to
escape
both
its
formalism
nd ts
emotional
ntangle-
ments,
musicwould have
to be
turned
nside
out and become
Misuk',
he
term
he
invented
n
the
1950s
or
the
radical
refunctioning
f
both
composition
and
performance
hat he
required.
Not even
Eisler
could
endorse o
restricted
defini-
tion:
Brecht's
ejection
f
certain orts
of music
wasso
extreme
hathe
invented
nother
ariety
of
music-making,
which
he called
'Misuk'. ... For a
musician it is
difficult to
describe
Misuk.
Above all
it is not
decadent
and
formalist,
but
extremely
close to the
people.
It
recalls,
perhaps,
he
singing
of
working
women
in a
back
courtyard
n
Sunday
after-
noons.34
The
ultimately
rreconcilable
ontradiction
etween
Brecht's
absolute
need for
and
undamental
uspicion
f
'cultivated'
music
would,
n
the
end,
imit
his
impact
on both musictheory andperformancepractice.
Weill
recognised
Brecht's
dilemma and in
1929
confided to a
friend
his
strategy
for
dealing
with
it:
Music has
more
impact
than
words. Brecht
knows it
and he
knows
that
I
know.
But
we never
talk
about it. If
it came
out in
the
open,
we
couldn'twork
with
each
other
any
more.
Brechtasks
or
complete
ubmission.
He
doesn't
get
it from
me,
but he
knows
that I'm
good
and
that I
understand
im
artistically,
o
he
pretends
hat I'm
utterly
30
Brecht,
'Texte fur
Musik',
Gesammelte
Werke,
XIX,
406;
rpt.
in
Lucchesi
and
Shull,
Musik
bei
Brecht
see
n.
8),
150f. The
short
essay
is
undated,
but
probably
originates
from c.
1934/5.
31
Brecht's
objections
to
denying
music
social
meaning
and
ascribing
o it
transcendental
significance
have
been
taken
up
and
extended
by
numerous
critics
in
recent
decades.
See,
for
example,
Susan
McClary's
foreword to
Catherine
Clement's
Opera
or the
Undoing of
Women,
rans.
Betsy
Wing
(Minneapolis,
1988),
x-xviii.
32
Brecht,
'Texte fur
Musik'.
Brecht
complained
that
'very
seldom
have I
found
my
name
on
gramophone
recordings
and
concert
programs,
and
when it is
there,
then
it's
printed
very
small'.
33
Edward
T.
Cone,
The
Composer's
Voice
(Berkeley, 1974),
45.
34
Hanns
Eisler,
'Bertolt
Brecht
und
die
Musik',
Sinn und
Form
(1957),
439-41;
trans.
Marjorie
Meyer
in
A
Rebel n
Music:Selected
Writings,
d.
Manfred
Grabs
(New York, 1978),
173f.
Eislerconcludedthe
essay:
Writing
these lines I recallthatBrechtaccusedme of
having
a
skeptical
and
condescending
attitude
towards
Misuk,
his
invention.
Unfortunately
he
was
right.'
See
also
Alexander
Ringer,
'Kleinkunst
und
Kuichenliedn
the
Socio-Musical
World
of
Kurt
Weill',
A
New
Orpheus n.
1),
37-59.
64
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Singing
Brecht s. Brecht
inging
65
under
his
spell.
I
don't have
to do
anything
o create hat
impression.
He does
it
all
himself.35
Brecht
indeed later
claimed that
he
'had whistled
things
for Weill bar
by
bar
and above all performedthem for him'.36This familiar account of Brecht'sventri-
loquism
(and
the
single-handed
rescue of
his
'dummy'
from
Schrekerian
atonal
psychological operas')
has been
obliquely
substantiated
by
a
frequently
cited
essay
published
under Lotte
Lenya's
name but
written
by
her second
husband,
George
Davis:
'Sometimes
Brecht
impressed
on Kurt his
own
ideas for a
song, picking
out chords on
his
guitar.
Kurt noted these ideas with his
grave
little smile
and
invariably
said
yes,
he
would
try
to work them in.' The
original
typescript
includes
another sentence
suppressed
in
publication: 'Naturally they
were
forgotten
at
once.'37
Except
on two
or
three celebrated
occasions,
Weill
proved
an
unwilling
mouthpiece for Brecht's melodies. He was as aggressiveas the poet when it came
to
defending
territory.
In
a
recently
rediscovered interview from
1934,
the
inter-
viewer
commented on the
dominant
role Brecht had
played
in their
collaboration;
Weill
answered
sharply:
It
almost ounds
as
if
you
think Brechtwrote
my
music. 'veoften
beenamazed
t
hearing
this view. Like
most
erroneous
opinions,
it
comes out of nowhere. ... Brecht
is
one
of
modern
Germany's
reatest iterary
alents;
but
being
a
greatpoet
doesn't
necessarily
mean he's
also
a
good composer.
.. Brecht s a
genius,
but for
the
music
n
our
joint
works,
I
alone
am
responsible.38
What
permitted poet
and
composer
to
pursue
common
goals,
while
gradually
realising
that
aesthetic and
sociological premises
were
insufficiently
shared,
was
the
mediatingconcept
of
Gestus,
a
term
introduced
n
print by
Weill in his
hypothe-
tical
lecture to
twelve-year-olds.39
Within a
music-theatre
hat strove
to illuminate
social
relationships
rather than
internal
psychological
states,
Weill and Brecht
both
conceived
Gestusas a
means
of
making
manifest the
behaviour
and attitudes
35
Felix
Jackson,
'Portrait
of a
Quiet
Man: Kurt
Weill,
His
Life
and
His
Times',
unpublished
biography
(photocopy
in the
Weill-Lenya
Research
Center,
New
York),
110.
36
Bertolt
Brecht,
Arbeitsjournal,
6
October
1940;
rpt.
in
Lucchesi
and
Shull
(see
n.
8),
183.
37
'That
Was
the
Time ',
TheatreArts
(May 1956);
rpt.
as
'August
28,
1931',
the
foreword
to
Desmond
Vesey's
and Eric
Bentley's
translation
of
The
Threepenny
Opera
New
York,
1964),
ix.
George
Davis
derived the
essay
from
interviews
with
Lotte
Lenya
and
Elisabeth
Hauptmann;
the
transcripts
of
those
interviews and the
typescript
of
the
essay
are
now in
the
Weill-Lenya
Research
Center.
The
nature
and
extent of the few
documented
musical
'borrowings' by
Weill
from
Brecht
are discussed
by
David
Drew,
Kurt Weill:A
Handbook
(London,
1987),
201-5.
38
Ole
Winding,
'Kurt Weill i
Exil',
Aften-Avisen
Copenhagen),
21
June
1934;
German
trans.
in
Weill,
Musik
und
Theater
see
n.
1),
314-17.
9
Weill refersto gestischeMusik.EislerrecalledthatBrechtused the term Gestus,asopposed
to
Geste,
as
early
as
1924,
but it
does
not
appear
n
his
writings
with
reference o music
until
c.
1930. For
a
chronological
survey
of
Brecht's
usage
of
Gestus,
ocial
Gestusand
Grundgestus,
ee
Fowler,
Received
Truths
n.
11),
40-6.
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13/25
KimH. Kowalke
of human
beings
owardsone
another.40
hey
agreed
hat musicwas
ndispensable
in
communicating
he
fundamental
Gestus f a theatrical ituation.
A
new
'gestic'
language,
ombining
dramatic,
yric
and
epic
modes of
poetry,
would
require
a
'gestic'
music
n
which
musical
autonomy
and
expressivity ielded
o
dramatic
and
socio-political urposes.
For
Brecht,
Gestuswas but one
of
several
trategies
or
'epicisation'
f the inter-
pretation,
presentation
nd
reception
of
his dramaticworks.
The
inconsistencies
of
terminology,
definitionand
usage
n
his
writings
betray
an
underlying
onflict
and ension
between he
dramaturgical
unction
and
deologicalmpact
hatBrecht
imagined
or
Gestus.Sometimes
he
demanded hat
the
fundamentalGestus
f
a
scene
prescribe
a certain
attitude
or
behaviour or the
performer;
lsewhere
he
asserted hat
'the
theatre
would
benefit
greatly
f
musicianswere
able
to
produce
music that would have
a more
or
less
exactly
foreseeable ffecton
the
spectator
[italicsmine]'.41 lthoughBrechtgraduallyeferredo Gestusn less behaviourist
and more
Marxist erms
(characters'
ocial
relationships
must be
determined
y
economicand
political
factors),
nitially
it
was
a
means o
reserve
pace
within
the
song
for his own
poetic voice/persona
and to
dictate
readings
of his
texts
by
both
composer
and
performer.
t
is,
therefore,
not
accidentalhat the
concept
emerged
only
afterhe
had
stopped
writing
and
publicly
singing
his own
songs,
when he
could
no
longerentirely
control
he
reading
f his
poems.
By fixing
the
rhythm,
stress,
pitch,
timbre,
pauses,
phrasing, dynamics,
tempos
and
intonation
of
his
poetry
in
a musical
setting,
Brecht
hoped
that
he
could
make
his
works
virtually
performer-proof
and
ensure
a
'drug-free'
effect
on their
audiences.
He
was far
from
isolated
in
his
quest;
it
is
hardly
coincidental that
Stravinsky,
at
precisely
the
same
time,
was
attempting
to
'safeguard
his work
by
establishing
he
manner in which
it
ought
to be
played'
in
a
series of
recordings
for
Columbia
initiated
in
1929. In
his
Autobiography,
Stravinsky
lamented the
40
In
the absence f
unambiguous
efinition
y
eitherWeill
or
Brecht,
many
critics
have
been
forced
o
derive
heirown
definitionsrom
he
unstable aseof
changing sage
n the
collaborators'
ritings, hereby
unning
he risk
of
combining
tatementsrom
different
periods
which
are,
n
fact,
mutually
xclusive.
MartinEsslinhas
defined
Gestus
ery
simply,
as the
clear
and
tylized
xpression
f the
social
behavior f human
beings
owards ach
other';
Brecht: he
Manand
His Work
Garden
City,
NY,
1961),
134.More
recently
Renate
Vorishasattemptedo reconcile he conflictsnherent nBrecht's sage, laiminghatGestus
'weaves
ogether
Gest
gesture)
nd
Grundgestus
gist)...
in an
attempt
o
distancehe
signifier
from he
signified,
he
sign
rom he
referent';
Brecht'sGestus: he
Body
n
Recess',
aper
delivered
t 1989
MLA-IBS
ession,
Washington,
C;
Abstract
ublished
n
Communications,
19
(Winter
1990),
19-22.
Shuhei
Hosokawamaintains
hat Gestus
ondenseshe narrative
to be
interpreted
y
the
spectators,
ssigns
comprehensible
orm o
the
amorphous
mass
of
the social
process
nd
nterpersonal
elationship
nravelling
hemselves
n
stage,
and
articulates
he
progressive
evelopment
f
the
production
f the
multilinear etwork
of
events
over
he
whole
strata f
the
stage';
Distance,
Gestus,
Quotation:
Aufstieg
ndFall
der
Stadt
Mahagonny
f
Brecht and
Weill',
InternationalReview
of
the
Aesthetics nd
Sociology
ofMusic,
6
(1985),
181-99.
Perhaps
he most
valuable
nglish-language
iscussion
f
problems
presented y
Gestuss
Patrice
Pavis,
On
Brecht's
Notion
of
Gestus',
rans.
Susan
Melrose,
in
Semiotics
of
Drama
and
Theatre:New
Perspectives
n
the
Theory f
Drama and
Theatre,
ed.HertaSchmidt ndAloysiusvanKesterenAmsterdam,984), 92-303.Forspecific
insight
nto
gestische
usik,
ee
Michael
Morley,
"'Suiting
he Action
o the
Word":
ome
Observationsn
Gestus
nd
gestische
usik',
n
A
New
Orpheus
n.
1),
183-201.
41
Brecht,
Arbeitsjournal,
February
941;
pt.
Lucchesi nd
Shull
see
n.
8),
185.
66
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Singing
Brecht s. Brecht
inging
67
project's
ailure:
is
it not
amazing
hat in
our
times,
when
a sure
means,
which
is accessible
o
all,
has
been found
of
learningexactly
how the
author
demands
his work to be
executed,
here
shouldstill be those
who will not
take
any
notice
of such
means,
but
persist
n
inserting
oncoctionsof
their
own
vintage?'42
ound
recordings
lone,
of
course,
could not
prescribe
authentic
performance
ractice
for
Brecht's heatrical
works;
but
he
hoped
he
theory
of
Gestus
ould.
Although
Weill's
heoretical
ormulations
were
equally
convoluted nd
undeve-
loped,
the
practical
ignificance
f the
concept
was
for
him
very
different.
He
describedGestus lmost
exclusively
as
a technical
ool,
with
historical
precedents
in
the musicof
Bach,Mozart,Beethoven,
Offenbach
ndBizet.
He
assumed
hat
Gestuswould enablemusicto
regain
a
predominant
osition
in the structure
f
musical heatre
works,
right
down
to the execution
of the
smallestdetails'.Gestus
could
free
music from its traditional
parallelism
o the
text,
as well as
from
its
descriptive ndpsychologicalunctions, herebygranting reatermelodic, ormal
and harmonic
atitude. The
specific
work
of the
composer
occurswhen he
uses
the meansof
musical
expression
o
establish ontactbetween
he text and
what
it
is
trying
to
express.'43
n other
words,
the
composer
hought
that
gestic
music
couldarticulate
hatthe
text
does
not
make
explicit
and
herebyprovide
a
subtext
ready-made
or
the
performer.
The
resulting
play'
betweenthe music and
the
lyric
could
convey
complicated
ayers
of
meaning
and
contradictory
ttitudes f
overlapping ersonae.
Competitionamong
these
various
nternal
voices
would
reach its
greatest ntensity
at
the
point
where
duality,
ambiguity
and
paradox
emerge
as
stylistic
hallmarks.
WhenBrecht
wrote that 'Weill's
music
for
the
opera
Mahagonny]
s
not
purely
gestic',
he
called
attention o
discrepancies
n both
theory
and
practice
n their
respective
gestic
formulas.44
n
light
of such
concurrently volving
constructs
as
Verfremdung,
recht
probably
ound
music
gestic
where
t most distanced
tself
fromthe
text,
by
means
of
parody
or
irony.
However,
having
assertedhe
primacy
of music
and its
independence
rom the
text,
Weill
could
only
reject
Brecht's
definitionas too
restrictive:
any
bias n the
presentation
f
[Mahagonny]
owards
the ironicor
the
grotesque
s
emphatically
o be
discouraged'.45erhaps
he
disso-
nanceof their
voices s bestobserved
n
the
example
Weill
himself hose
o
illustrate
gestischeMusik:he 'Alabama ong',a key number n boththe Songspielndfull-
length opera.
Brecht's
and Weill's first
collaborative
ffort,
the
Songspiel ppro-
priated
rom
Brecht's
Hauspostille
he
five exotic
pieces
of
Amerikanismus
ntitled
'Mahagonny-Gesange',
or
which he
had
already
ketched
udimentary
unes
out
of
necessity',
according
o
Weill's
essay,
'of
making
the
Gestus
lear'.
Because
Elisabeth
Hauptmann
ada hand n
the
primitive,
pop-songEnglish
of
the
poem,
42
Igor
Stravinsky,
An
Autobiography
1936]
(New
York,
1962),
150f.
43
Weill,
'Uber
den
gestischen
Charakterder
Musik',
Die
Musik,
21
(March
1929),
419-23;
trans.
in
Kim H.
Kowalke,
Kurt Weill n
Europe
Ann
Arbor,
1979),
491-6.
Although
Weill claimed
that
'gestic
music
is,
of
course,
in
no
way
bound to the
text',
his
examples
tend to
contradict
this assertion.
44
'Uber
die
Verwendung
von
Musik fur ein
episches
Theater',
Gesammelte
Werke,XV,
476.
45
'Vorwort zum
Regiebuch
der
Oper Aufstieg
und Fall der
Stadt
Mahagonny',
Anbruch,
12
(January1930),
6.
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68
Kim H.
Kowalke
we
know
that
Brecht
wrote the text of the
'Alabama
Song'
after November
1924,
when he
first
met the former
English
teacher.
Brecht's
tune,
which was
published
in
slightly
different variants in the
privately published
Taschenpostille1926) (see
Ex.
1)
and
Hauspostille(Propylaen-Verlag,1927), predates
21
November
1925,
when
Bruinier
completed
a
textless,
strophic piano
realisation of the
melody
(see
Alabama
Song
A
y ^
ip
; } Y ; ) Y 1 ;
Oh, lead us the
way
to the next
whis-ky-
bar,
t r
i r
p _ _
r
r .
oh,
don't
ask
why,
oh,
don't ask
why,
for we
must find
~ P
the next whis -
ky
-
bar,
for
if
we don't
find
the
next
whis-
ky
-
bar,
I tell
you,
I
tell
you,
I
tell
you
we must
die
Oh
moon
of
A
-
la
-
ba
-
ma,
we
n w
m u S
gdr
now__
must
say
good-bye,
we've
lost
our
good
old
j
bLJ2J
.
L-L
ma
and
must
have
whis
-
ky,
oh
you
know
why.
Ex. 1
Brecht's
melody
as it
appeared
n
the
Taschenpostille.
mam
rl rwam"
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Singing
Brecht vs. Brecht
singing
^
r
^ '
; r n
r K
--^
-
*
i
---
-
C--
=
^^~~~
r
n-X^Z^P^
rf
r
z
\0-
r 4
o
Fig.
1. Bruinier's
setting
of Brecht's
melody
(1925).
[Bertolt-Brecht-Archiv
49/51-52]
Fig.
1).46
Whatever
its
shortcomings
from a
purely
musical
point
of view
-
even
Bruinier
modified
portions
of the
childlike
melody
in
order
to make its chain
of
descending
minor
thirds
conform
to the
syntax
of diatonic music
-
Brecht
did indeed set forth a Gestus: hort, plodding phrasesin the verse, breathless and
monotonous,
cramped
into the
span
of
a
minor
third
in
the
mid-range
of the
voice,
with
no
syllable
sustained
much
beyond
a
sighed
half
note;
a refrain of
no
greater
musical
interest,
but one
that
expands
its
range phrase by phrase
until
it
spans
a ninth. Weill
analysed
Brecht's
music
in some detail and asserted: A
basic Gestus
has been fixed
rhythmically
in
the
most
primitive
form,
while the
melody
adheres
to
the
totally
personal
and inimitable manner of
singing
with
46
Brechthad
borrowed'he name
Mahagonny,
swell
as
specificword-play
or 'Aufnach
Mahagonny',
roma
popular
ongby
Krauss-Elkand
0.
A. Alberts
1921)
ntitled
Komm
nach
Mahagonne',
ubtitledn
various
ublications
nd
recordings
itheras
an
Afrikanischer-'
or'Amerikanischer-Shimmy'.eeAndreasHauff,Mahagonny.. OnlyaMade-UpWord?',
KurtWeill
Newsletter,
(Spring
991),
-9.
Weill'snotation
of
Brecht's
melody
or the
essay
differs rom
boththe
Taschenpostille
nd
Hauspostille
ersions;
here
s
alsoa word nversion:
'Wemust
now
saygoodbye'.
I
-7-=--
-
- .-
.-
-'.
-,
..
-_ ::7--
-s'
P - -
69
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Kim H. Kowalke
which
Brecht
performs
his
songs.
...
One sees
that this is
nothing
more
than
a notation
of the
speech-rhythm
nd
completely
uselessas music.'
This is
more
than
just
a
professional omposer ummarily ismissing
he efforts
of an
amateur:
it is a musician
easserting
he
primacy
f
his art.
When Weill
reordered
he
'Mahagonny-Gesange'
or the
Songspiel,
e
separated
the two
English yrics,
breaking
up
a
poetic dyad
(the
sensual
Alabama-moon
vs. sacred
Benares-sun)
o
effect a strict alternation f
German
and
English
up
to the new Finale.
Weill scored
the
opening
fox-trot,
'Auf nach
Mahagonny',
for
four
men in close
harmony,
a
sonority
nvoking
both
Singverein
nd
barber-
shop.
With the textual
trope
on the
refrain