This 10 CD box is a tribute to the composer, revealing the enormous amount of music he wrote in a vast variety of styles, from tuneful mass songs to Schoenberg’s 12‐note method.

Believing as he did in the functionality of music, Eisler employed whatever idiom was appropriate to the task in hand, including drawing inspiration from jazz and popular songs and distortions of military music. Though he wrote some very large works (such as the Deutsche Sinfonie – part symphony, part cantata, part ‘German Requiem’), he was especially a master of small forms, as we see for instance in his Kleine Sinfonie, largely derived from his film music of 1930‐2 (and which adheres to his credo that music can offer a new utilisation when it forges links with other artistic forms of expression). Many of his works are of course political‐based, but what becomes apparent throughout listening to his oeuvre is that, while rejecting all the rhetoric of Romanticism, Eisler never lost faith in firm technique and the value of solid contrapuntal work. A wealth of talent is assembled for this album, from the first‐rate German ensembles Staatskapelle Dresden and Rundfunk‐Sinfonie‐Orchester to lauded artists such as the character actress Gisela May and the soprano Irmgard Arnold, who can be heard in rehearsal with the composer himself.

Artists

Elisabeth Breul (soprano), Ekkehard Schall (vocals), Gunter Neumann (tenor), Gunther Leib (bass), Gisela Burkhardt (soprano), Uta Priew (alto), Rosemarie Lang (mezzo-soprano), Andreas Sommerfeld (baritone), Tomas Mowes (baritone), Martin Seifert (narrator), Stefan Lisewski (narrator), Roswitha Trexler (soprano, alto), Helga Termer (soprano), Peter Menzel (tenor), Konrad Other (violin), Gerhard Erber (piano), Jutta Czapski (piano), Hermann Christian Polster (bass), Rudolf Ulbrich (violin), Joachim Zindler (viola), Clemens Dillner (cello), Wilfried Winkelmann (flute), Oskar Michallik (clarinet), Friedrich-Carl Erben (violin), Arnim Orlamunde (viola), Wolfgang Bernhardt (cello), Johannes Walter (flute), Kurt Mahn (oboe), Jutta Zoff (harp), Gustav Schmahl (violin), Manfred Friedrich (flute), Hans Himmler (clarinet), Herbert Heilmann (bassoon), Ralf-Rainer Haase (violin), Karl-Heinz Schroter (cello), Gisela May (soprano), Walter Olbertz (piano), Siegfried Stockigt (piano), Irmgard Arnold (soprano), Volker Rohde (piano), Andre Asriel (piano), Gerald Schleicher (clarinet), Ewald Koch (clarinet), Hartmut Friedrich (trombone), Peter Seydel (viola), Kurt Scharmacher (piano), Hanns Eisler (piano), Hermann Hahnel (baritone), Carola Nossek (soprano), Annelies Burmeister (alto), Gunther Bayer (tenor), Joachim Vogt (baritone), Inge Kochan (piano), Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Berliner Symphoniker, MDR Sinfonieorchester, Berlin Radio Choir, Berlin Wind Quintet, Leipzig Collegium Musicum, Berlin State Opera Chamber Music Ensemble, Berlin Academy of Song, Staatskapelle Berlin, Henry Krtschil Studio Orchestra, Leipzig Radio Choir, Berlin Singakademie, Berlin Symphony Orchestra, members, male section, Grosses Rundfunk-Orchester Berlin, Max Pommer, Heinz Rögner, Günther Herbig, Adolf Fritz Guhl, Dietrich Knothe, Hans-Jurgen Wenzel, Henry Krtschil, Horst Neumann