Brecht Singing

8/10/2019 Brecht Singing

1/25

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.

Accessed: 06/11/2013 12:21

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at.http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Cambridge University Pressis collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Cambridge

Opera Journal.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 90.215.192.196 on Wed, 6 Nov 2013 12:21:26 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cuphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/823750?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/823750?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup


2/25

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.

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


3/25

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



4/25

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



5/25

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



6/25

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



7/25

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



8/25

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



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



10/25

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



11/25

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



12/25

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.



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



14/25

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.



15/25

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"



16/25

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



17/25

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

Documents

Brecht Singing