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ABSTRACT
Although scholars have typically studied the Nazi concentration camp system through a political and military analysis, another approach is to consider how composers depicted the Holocaust. This article places two works about concentration camps in relation to human rights issues: Hanns Eisler's German Symphony (1935-58) and his mentor Arnold Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw (1947). Both compositions rely heavily on texts to communicate their message. The article integrates Mark Philip Bradley's idea about the ‘global human rights imagination’: how nonstate actors, such as creative artists, could contribute to discussions about human rights through their art form or profession.
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Notes
1 Wachsmann, KL; Pitzer, One Long Night; Kershaw, Hitler; Friedländer, Den Holocaust beschreiben. See also Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, esp. 561-92.
2 For example, Gilbert, Music in the Holocaust; Wlodarski, Musical Witness and Holocaust Representation; Anderton, ‘Displaced Music’, 141–59.
3 Glanz, Hanns Eisler, 24; Reich, Schoenberg, 189-91; Ringer, Arnold Schoenberg, 135.
4 On the history of human rights, see Hunt, Inventing Human Rights; Moyn, The Last Utopia; Bradley, The World Reimagined; Morsink, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
5 Bradley, The World Reimagined, 3, 5-6.
6 Bradley, The World Reimagined, 3; Rorty, ‘Human Rights, Rationality, and Sentimentality’, p. 180; Hunt, Inventing Human Rights, 34.
7 Bradley, The World Reimagined, 20.
8 On the German Symphony, see Phleps, Hanns Eislers ‘Deutsche Sinfonie’; Brockhaus, Hanns Eisler, 103-10; Glanz, Hanns Eisler, 64-66; Betz, Hanns Eisler, 135-37; Dümling, ‘Zur Funktion der Reihentechnik in Eislers Deutscher Sinfonie’, 475-81; Niegot, ‘Von der Notwendigkeit in der Musik’, 22-29; Hufner, ‘Volksfront und Avantgarde’. Eisler adapted the third movement from his Orchestral Suite No. 1, op. 30 (1930).
9 Brecht, Lieder Gedichte Chöre, 9-102; see also Brecht, Gedichte 3, 1930-1933.
10 Silone, Brot und Wein. An Italian version (Pano e vino) appeared in 1937 and an English version in 1946. Bittner's The Mountain Lake (Der Bergsee), which Brecht used in his adaptation, premiered on 9 Nov. 1911 in Vienna at the Royal Opera House (Operntheater des Wiener Hofes) and ran for four more performances until 28 Nov. 1911. See ‘Julius Bittner (Musik) in “Der Bergsee”’.
11 The number of soloists can vary, depending on the performance or recording, and can include soprano, mezzo-soprano, alto, baritone and/or bass. There are few comparable twentieth-century works to the Germany Symphony, such as Gustav Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde (1908) and Dmitry Shostakovich's Symphony No. 14, Op. 13 (1969), both of which rely substantially on texts, yet they do not have choral parts. Arnold Schoenberg wrote the twelve-tone Jakobsleiter (Jacob's Ladder) oratorio for soloists, chorus and orchestra, consisting of eleven movements, which he began in 1914 yet could not complete by the time of his death. See Arnold Schoenberg, ‘Die Jakobsleiter (nach einer Dichtung des Komponisten) für Soli, Chor und Orchester’.
12 On Eisler's career and exile, see Glanz, Hanns Eisler; Betz, Hanns Eisler; Schebera, Hanns Eisler; Brockhaus, Hanns Eisler; Wißmann, Hanns Eisler; Krones, ed., Hanns Eisler. See also Eisler, Gesammelte Schriften, 1921-1935; Eisler, Materialien zu einer Dialektik der Musik; Lee, Musik und Literatur im Exil.
13 Eisler shared the award with fellow Austrian composers Julius Bittner (1874-1939) and Paul Amadeus Pisk (1893-1990); Pisk later immigrated to the United States in 1936. Glanz, Hanns Eisler, 143.
14 On Eisler's leftist politics, see Goehr, ‘Political Music and the Politics of Music’, 99-112; Culbert, ‘Introduction. Hanns Eisler (1898-1962)’, 493-502.
15 Glanz, Hanns Eisler, chap. 3; Hart, Hanns Eisler's Art Songs, 7-8.
16 Hanns Eisler to Bertolt Brecht, 20 July 1935, Hanns Eisler Briefe 1907-1943, 106; Phleps, Hanns Eislers ‘Deutsche Sinfonie’, 57.
17 Glanz, Hanns Eisler, 64.
18 Eisler first wrote sketches for the symphony in Detroit in 1935 during a U.S. tour, then continued to develop it in London, England in July-Sept. 1936, as well as in Skovsbostrand, Denmark in Spring 1937 and in New York in 1938-39. He revised the tenth movement in Malibu, California in 1947 before returning to Europe.
19 Brecht, Kriegsfibel, Plate 61 [unpaginated].
20 Adorno, Philosophy of New Music, 35.
21 Ibid., 37.
22 Adorno, ‘Cultural Criticism and Society’, in Prisms, 34. Adorno's statement on Auschwitz and poetry has often been taken out of context; the complete quote is: ‘Cultural criticism finds itself faced with the final stage of the dialectic of culture and barbarism. To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. And this corrodes even the knowledge of why it has become impossible to write poetry today. Absolute reification, which presupposed intellectual progress as one of its elements, is now preparing to absorb the mind entirely.’ On his revisions of this view, see, for example, Adorno, Negative Dialektik, 353-54.
23 Kater, The Twisted Muse, 78-79, 125-26.
24 ‘Die ersten Skizzen die ich dazu gemacht habe (in Detroit) sind äusserst vielversprechend.’ Hanns Eisler to Bertolt Brecht, 20 July 1935, Hanns Eisler Briefe 1907-1943, 105-07.
25 Eisler to Brecht, 20 July 1935, Hanns Eisler Briefe 1907-1943, 106.
26 ‘Kaum Erreichbare ihr, / In den Lagern begraben, / Abgeschnitten von jedem menschlichen Wort. / Und ausgeliefert diesen Misshandlungen. Nicht Widerlegte, / Oh ihr Verschwundenen aber / Niedergeknüppelte aber / O ihr Verschwundenen, aber / Nicht Vergessenen.’ Program, Deutsche Sinfonie, 24 April 1959, Hauptmann-Elizabeth 93, Hauptmann Archive. At the work's premiere, this program marked the first time that all of the symphony's texts were published together. All translations by author unless otherwise specified.
27 ‘Hören wir wenig von Euch, so hören wir doch: / Ihr seid unverbesserbar, / Ihr seid unabbringbar unserer Sache ergeben, / Unabbringbar davon: Dass es in Deutschland / Immer noch zweierlei Menschen gibt: / Ausbeuter und Ausgebeutete, / Und dass nur der Klassenkampf / Die Menschenmassen der Städte und des / Land's aus ihrem Elend befreien kann. / Und auch nicht durch Martern seid ihr / Abzubringen von uns’rer guten Sache.’ Program, Deutsche Sinfonie, Hauptmann Archive. See also Wißmann, Hanns Eisler, 255.
28 Eisler, ‘Brief an Arnold Schönberg’, in Materialien zu einer Dialektik der Musik, 33-34.
29 Glanz, Hanns Eisler, chap. 3; Prieto, interview with author by phone, 28 Nov. 2021.
30 Wachsmann, KL, 41-43, 47, 65-67; ‘Carl von Ossietzky, Biographical’, 1. Later on von Ossietzky was moved to the Esterwegen-Papenburg camp in Lower Saxony. The Sonnenburg camp also included some members of the French resistance, such as Jean-Baptiste Lebas and René Lefebvre; Lefebvre died there in 1944.
31 ‘Es steht in Sonnenburg / Ein deutsches Lager, / Insassen und Posten / Sind beide mager.’ And further: ‘Sie zeigen auch Waffen her, / Ruten und Pistolen, / Damit gehn sie in die Nacht / Hungrige holen.’ Program, Deutsche Sinfonie, Hauptmann Archive.
32 Wachsmann, KL, 47.
33 One can point to three distinct periods of the Weimar Republic: 1919-24, 1925–29 and 1930-33. The first, from 1919 to 1924, represented an economic and political nadir for Germany as an era of almost continuous violence and upheaval, such as the assassination of numerous political figures: Kurt Eisner in 1919, Matthias Erzberger in 1921, and Walter Rathenau in 1922, as well as radical socialists Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg in 1919, along with an attempt on the life of socialist Philipp Scheidemann in 1922. There were also several attempted coups, notably the Beer-Hall Putsch in 1923 involving a group of ex-soldiers, including Hitler. Hitler was arrested, yet tragically he was not deported to Austria and was given a relatively light sentence of only five years in prison and was released after only one year: a foreboding sign. Other lesser known coups were the Kapp Putsch, headed by a former civil servant, Wolfgang Kapp, in 1920, and the so-called ‘Black Military’ (schwarzen Reichswehr) Putsch of 1923. All of these coups were ultimately unsuccessful, and the rule of law, which is the foundation of civil rights, appeared to hold until 1933. See Peukert, The Weimar Republic, 280.
34 Gilbert and Large, The End of the European Era, 169-70.
35 ‘The Constitution of the German Empire of August 11, 1919 (Weimar Constitution)’. Both Eisler and Schoenberg lived under the Weimar Constitution, and whereas the West German constitution would provide an interesting frame of reference, neither composer had any direct experience with it.
36 Ibid., p. 1.
37 ‘The Constitution of the German Empire of August 11, 1919’, p. 7.
38 Ibid., pp. 1-2.
39 Gilbert and Large, The End of the European Era, 172.
40 ‘The Constitution of the German Empire of August 11, 1919’, pp. 6-7.
41 Ibid., p. 7.
42 Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 512.
43 The ‘Enabling Act’ (24 March 1933).
44 See Crittenden, ‘Texts and Contexts of A Survivor from Warsaw, Op. 46’, 231-58; Wlodarski, ‘“An Idea Can Never Perish”’, 581-607; Muxeneder, ‘“I saw it in my imagination”’, 239-59; Calico, Arnold Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw; Marcus, Schoenberg and Hollywood Modernism, 152-54.
45 On the Ode to Napoleon, see Marcus, Schoenberg and Hollywood Modernism, 186-93. On the Piano Concerto, see Bailey, ‘Listening to Schoenberg's Piano Concerto’, 238-46; Zenck, ‘Konzert für Klavier und Orchester op. 42’, 95-108.
46 Bradley, The World Reimagined, 3, 5-6.
47 Schoenberg, A Survivor from Warsaw, mm. 23-24, pp. 5-6.
48 Ibid., mm. 28-30, 40-41, pp. 8-12.
49 Ibid., m. 43, p. 13.
50 Ibid., mm. 54-55, p. 15.
51 Ibid., mm. 59-61, pp. 16-17.
52 ‘Rascher! Nochmal von vorn anfangen! In einer Minute will ich wissen, wieviele ich zur Gaskammer abliefere!’ Ibid., mm. 68-69, p. 18.
53 ‘Shem’a Yisroel Adonoy eloheynu Adonoy ehod we’ohavto ‘et Adonoy eloheyho behol levovcho uvhol nafscheho uvechol me’odocho.’ Ibid., mm. 80-90, pp. 23-25.
54 Nuria Schoenberg Nono, interview with Camille Crittenden, 13 Nov. 1996, in Crittenden, ‘Texts and Contexts of A Survivor from Warsaw, Op. 46’, 232-33, 251, n. 7.
55 Wlodarski, ‘“An Idea Can Never Perish”’, 585-86.
56 Feisst, Schoenberg's New World, 105-08.
57 Arnold Schoenberg to Kurt List, 1 Nov. 1948, Box 4, Folder 29, Schoenberg Papers.
58 On Zeisl's compositions in exile, see Cole, ‘Eric Zeisl's “American Period”’, 71-78; Cole, ‘Eric Zeisl: The Rediscovery of an Émigré Composer’, 237-44; Cole, ‘Eric Zeisl: A Celebration of Life and Art’. See also Marcus, Schoenberg and Hollywood Modernism, 172-74; Crawford, A Windfall of Musicians, 205-11.
59 Zeisl, Requiem ebraico, liner notes.
60 Stuckenschmidt, Schönberg, 435; Mäckelmann, Arnold Schönberg und das Judentum, 479-80.
61 Marcus, Schoenberg and Hollywood Modernism, 152-54.
62 See Morsink, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights; Moyn, The Last Utopia, 59-63, 94-99, 181-87; Hunt, Inventing Human Rights, 203-05, 223-29. On recounting her own experiences overseeing the Commission that drafted the Charter, see Roosevelt, The Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt; Roosevelt, My Day.
63 Loeffler, ‘“The Conscience of America”’, 404.
64 Ibid.
65 UDHR, Preamble, reprinted in Hunt, Inventing Human Rights, 223.
66 UDHR, in Hunt, Inventing Human Rights, 224.
67 Morsink, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights; Moyn, The Last Utopia, 59-63; Hunt, Inventing Human Rights, 203-05.
68 Schoenberg, A Survivor from Warsaw, mm. 43-45, p. 13.
69 Ibid., mm. 46-50, pp. 13-14.
70 Calico, Arnold Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw, 10.
71 The ISCM jury members in 1937 were French composer Jacques Ibert, English composer Edward Clark, Spanish composer Robert Gerhard, Swedish composer and journalist Gunnar Jeanson, and Slovenian composer Slavko Osterc. Eisler agreed to have his Orchestral Suite No. 3 (1931) performed instead, which took place on 25 June 1937 by the Orchestre philharmonique de Paris, conducted by Czech composer Karel Ančerl at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. Eisler was not the sole German composer to see his music censored by the German government at the 1937 Festival; composer Peter Schacht suffered the same fate. See ‘ISCM, 1937 Paris’ at https://iscm.org/wnmd/1937-paris/; Phleps, Hanns Eislers ‘Deutsche Sinfonie’, 57-58.
72 K.Sch., ‘Brecht-Eislers ‘Deutsche Sinfonie’. Uraufführung in der Deutschen Staatsoper’, Berliner Zeitung, 28 April 1959; Heino Lüdicke, ‘Sinfonie aus Deutschlands dunkler Zeit: Eisler-Uraufführung in einem Konzert der Berliner Staatskapelle’, Neue Zeit, 28 April 1959, Eisler 3920, Eisler Archive.
73 Performances of the third, sixth and tenth movements took place on 28 March 1958 in Leipzig (op. 50, nos. 3, 6 and 10) by the Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester Leipzig, conducted by Walter Goehr at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, and two performances of the tenth movement took place on 3 and 8 November 1988, respectively, by the Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester Leipzig, conducted by Max Pommer, at the Leipzig Gewandhaus. See Loos, ‘Über die Behandlung von Schönberg, Berg und Webern in Leipzig 1949 bis 1989’.
74 For example, Mayer, ed., Hanns Eisler der Zeitgenosse; Schebera, Hanns Eisler.
75 On the reception of Eisler's music in general in the United States, see Calico, ‘“The Karl Marx of Music”’, 120-36.
76 Calico, Arnold Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw, 10.
77 Schoenberg heard of the response by a member of the audience, Isabel Grear, and the local paper, the Albuquerque Journal, that wrote a review the following day. Arnold Schoenberg to Mrs. Jay Grear, 13 Nov. 1948, in A Schoenberg Reader, ed. Auner, 320-22.
78 Calico, Arnold Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw, 11-12, 25-30, 41-42, 53-57, 71-86, 129-34, 151-52.
79 West German critic Hans Schnoor (1893-1976) was a former Nazi and was later fined for his comments. Calico, Arnold Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw, 31-39.
80 Calico, Arnold Schoenberg's A Survivor from Warsaw, 83.
81 Iddon, New Music at Darmstadt, 42, 50, 49-50; Beal, New Music, New Allies, 59-64.
82 ‘Performance History for Op. 46 A Survivor from Warsaw’, Belmont Music. I thank Larry Schoenberg for sharing this performance history document with me.
83 ‘Music of the Holocaust’; Wlodarski, ‘“An Idea Can Never Perish”’, 581–607.
84 Bradley, The World Reimagined, 3.
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Kenneth H. Marcus
Kenneth Marcus is a Professor of History at the University of La Verne, where he teaches courses in European and American history, world history, and history methods. He earned his B.A. in history at the University of California, Berkeley; an M.B.A. from the École Supérieure de Commerce de Paris, France; and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Cambridge, UK. He specializes in the field of 20th century U.S. cultural history, with an emphasis on European-American cultural relations, and has published four books: Schoenberg and Hollywood Modernism (Cambridge University Press, 2016), Musical Metropolis: Los Angeles and the Creation of a Music Culture, 1880-1940 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), The Politics of Power: Elites of an Early Modern State in Germany (Philipp von Zabern, 2000) and an edited collection of writings by his mother, Laura Marcus, titled Inside the Caltech Community (Collegiate Press, 2019). Dr. Marcus has published over 60 articles, encyclopedia entries, book reviews, and multimedia. His articles have appeared in The Pacific Historical Review, Southern California Quarterly, The History Teacher, American Music, Journal of African American History, California History, Journal of the Society of American Music, History Compass, Journal of the West, The Sixteenth Century Journal, and German History. He is the recipient of two Fulbright awards: Fulbright Senior Professor in American Culture at Leiden University, the Netherlands in 2013, and Fulbright Senior Fellow in Cultural Studies at the International Research Center for Cultural Studies (IFK) in Vienna, Austria in 2021-22. He was a Research Fellow at the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) at the University of Cambridge in 2022.