Change the world; it needs it!'' Hanns Eisler always remained true to this challenge. Between the Great Depression and the Third Reich the committed communist...

Change the world; it needs it!'' Hanns Eisler always remained true to this challenge. Between the Great Depression and the Third Reich the committed communist endeavored to exercise influence with his music as his medium. On the first volume of our edition of Hanns Eisler's songs, Holger Falk and Steffen Schleiermacher present pieces from the years between 1929 and 1937 for whcih Bertolt Brecht supplied almost all the texts. A long-overdue rehabilitation of a composer who for many years was known above all as the German Democratic Republic's artistic spokesman! The tightrope over which the artists moved was very narrow. Today their honest and unconditional admiration for communism may seem rather strange - so that it is all the more remarkable how Holger Falk maintains a balance between genuine emotion and grand pathos! The spectrum is broad, and the repertoire ranges from the brazen ''Lied vom Anstrecher Hitler'' through the oppressive ''O Falladah, wie du da hangest'' to cabaret pieces like the ''Stempellied'' thematizing with original Berlin ''heart and fist'' the poverty experience by many people during the Great Depression.