ABSTRACT
Hanns Eisler plays indeed one of the most singular roles in musical life. Although he hardly ever appears in “bourgeois” concert programmes, he is one of the young composers whose works receive a high number of performances in Germany. Music – explains Eisler – is the most social of all arts. Without a society there is no music and without collective ideals society does not exist. Great musicians have only existed during periods of great social ideals. Die Massnahme – a collaboration between Eisler and the poet Bertolt Brecht – is a work for choir in which four soloists engage in a dialectic with each other and the choir, supported by a small ensemble of wind instruments and percussion. The musician who cannot make music for a society without ideals, makes music for himself and only for himself.
