When in 1948 German composer Hanns Eisler was expelled from the United States in the early stages of the Red Scare, Virgil Thomson lamented, "It is a matter of regret to this reviewer to lose a workman so gifted, so skillful, so imaginative. Let us hope that his musical works may come to us regularly from Europe." Arriving in East Germany in 1950, Eisler was welcomed as a hero, composing the East German national anthem. In his last years, however, Hanns Eisler became an internal exile. Having always clearly divided his work ...
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When in 1948 German composer Hanns Eisler was expelled from the United States in the early stages of the Red Scare, Virgil Thomson lamented, "It is a matter of regret to this reviewer to lose a workman so gifted, so skillful, so imaginative. Let us hope that his musical works may come to us regularly from Europe." Arriving in East Germany in 1950, Eisler was welcomed as a hero, composing the East German national anthem. In his last years, however, Hanns Eisler became an internal exile. Having always clearly divided his work between that for mass audiences and "serious" music, Eisler discovered that his serious side, grounded in the twelve-tone aesthetic inherited from his teacher Arnold Schoenberg, was not compatible with the Soviet-controlled East German state. Nevertheless, a hero Eisler remained, and in the wake of his 1962 passing, East Germany instituted through the state-owned label Eterna an ambitious plan to record his complete works, a project that wrapped in about 1975. These recordings were...
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