Hearing, Speaking, Singing, Writing: The Meaning of Oral Tradition for Bert Brecht

 

ALBRECHT DÜMLING

 

 

I

 

Despite the coarseness that Bert Brecht often openly displayed, he was a person who reacted with great sensitivity to sounds and noises. When his grandmother read to him from the Bible or friends played classical music for him, he was a very attentive listener. The sensitivity with which he reacted to music even as a schoolboy can be seen from an episode related by his classmate Georg Geyer.[1] When Geyer once played the slow movement of Mozart's F-Major Piano Sonata KV 280 for him, Brecht was impulsively inspired to write a poem about death, which he subsequently sketched into the music. He heard instrumental music in the sense of a symphonic poem, as entirely poetic-programmatic; it excited his "Klangbilderphantasie" (Heine), and thus became a source of his artistic productivity.

 

In the case of the F-minor adagio movement of the Mozart sonata, the dotted rhythms suggestive of a funeral march may have reminded him not only of the World War going on then, but also of his own uncertain health. Still in American exile in 1944, he mentioned the exceptionally strong effect of the Matthäuspassion,[2] which he had, as a schoolboy, indeed feared. Certain music affected the "Stückeschreiber" (Brecht's term for himself as playwright) like a drug which immediately altered his body temperature. When he later spoke of the fixed, gaping stares of the sweating concertgoers,[3]  he was describing his own physical response to great symphonic music. He identified this kind of reaction with the middle class and saw in the preeminence of the musical arts - as did the poet Stefan George[4] - a threat to literary arts and theater. (One can perceive the secret rivalry between opera and dramatic theater also in his critiques of the Augsburg Theater.)

 

Brecht battled against the seductive power of music so vehemently because he was himself so completely ensnared by it.[5] Music affected his emotions subliminally and was thus less controllable for him than literature.  Its effect was therefore - and this he did experience - stronger at least for the short term. On 25 September 1920 he noted in his diary: "Immerfort beschäftigt mich die geringe Macht, die der Mensch über den Menschen hat. Es gibt keine Sprache, die jeder versteht. Es gibt kein Geschoß, das ins Ziel trifft. Die Beeinflussung geht anders herum: sie vergewaltigt (Hypnose)."[6]

 

The narcotic effect, particularly of late Romantic music, was based essentially on blocking out reality as demanded by the proponents of so­called absolute music; the mundane should remain excluded from the special world of the concert hall. The music historian Heinrich Besseler set this middle-class form of "Darbietungsmusik" against the historically earlier form of "Umgangsmusik," i.e., functional arts like the folk song or the music of church and school, which were still bound to life, to human activity.[7] Like the "Jugendbewegung" and with a similar activistic impulse, Brecht also demanded a return to functional musical forms. Against the vague generality of instrumental music which allowed itself to be misused so easily, he opposed a concrete designation of purpose; and against the socially unspecific music-making groups in the "Jugendbewegung" (which later decayed into "Volksgemeinschaft"),[8] he insisted on a specific target group, a particular person, an occupation, or even a class.

 

As opposite pole to the prevailing middle-class concept of art, to the much too broad and general human pathos of Classicism (but also of Expressionism), Brecht emphasized the concrete social place of every art, including texts and their music. Already in his hometown of Augsburg Brecht had turned towards the culture of the proletarian, small-town suburb. That culture was rarely preserved in written form since it essentially rested on oral tradition; it did not exist on paper, but rather all the more in reality, in the practice of life. Because there were neither books nor music stands on the street, listening was more important than reading. On special occasions people played music, sang, and spoke spontaneously or from memory. An important part of this suburban culture were the folk songs which Brecht mentioned in his essay, "Wo ich gelernt habe." He had happily not only read, but also heard them sung by the people with their special intonation and on the proper occasion ("glücklicherweise nicht nur gelesen, sondern auch gehört, ... gesungen von der Bevölkerung mit der besonderen Intonation und bei der richtigen Gelegenheit").[9] As in the case of the songs of the suburbs, Brecht hoped also that his songs would not just be read.

 

In the suburbs the songs were not the result of abstract instruction but were rather expressions of specific interests; they were tied to occasions. Folk songs achieved their worth and their meaning first through their realistic utilization. With this, Brecht distanced himself from the middle-class concept of the art work, which supposedly retained an unchangeable worth independent of its use. For him the term "Gelegenheitswerk" (occasional work) was in no way a negative stamp since it contained the connection with social activity, which for hem had priority before art. "Gelegenheitswerke" had to subordinate themselves to their practical function, which included the possibility and even necessity of permanent change and spontaneous invention. Thus in his essay "Wo ich gelernt habe" he stressed that the women workers of a nearby paper factory did not always remember all the verses of a song, and therefore improvised certain passages from which much could be learned ("wovon viel zu lernen war"). Because social interaction stood in the forefront, literary as well as musical texts were secondary, derivative forms of singing, speaking, and music-making. They represented merely provisional versions, comparable to a tape recording. As it pertained to the readers, "literature" was just a stage direction, comparable to a score.

 

In Brecht's simple notations, similar to medieval neumes, this idea of temporariness is aptly expressed: it aspires to be no more than a memory aid, a basis for improvisation. The famous laxness of the "Stückeschreiber" in questions of copyright had its tools in the belief that art belongs to everyone and comes alive only in the individual's appropriation of it. Because his works - like true folk art - had to survive in oral tradition, they had to be alterable. Written forms represented for him in any case "Versuche" (attempts). Under this label he published those works he considered decidedly not "classical."

 

In contrast to Stefan George, for example, who valued expensive materials and durable bindings, Brecht preferred temporary stuff. This son of a paper manufacturer showed a notable reserve regarding paper. He wanted to have his "Lautenfibel" published on newspaper or wastepaper: It will fall apart in three or four years so that the volumes will wind up on the junk heap after people have assimilated them ("Der zerfällt in drei, vier Jahren, daß die Bände auf den Mist wandern, nachdem man sie sich einverleibt hat").[10] Art achieved worth only through its use. As with the rough linen ("Rupfen") costumes and sets of his early stage productions, Brecht preferred provisional, perishable materials for his texts. He sketched his songs and poems on thin paper because he hoped his friends would soon learn them from memory anyway. The written form, this way, was supposed to become superfluous. A certain mode of speaking ("Sprechhaltung") was fixed in the melody of the poem which made possible its becoming a configuration of sound, a "Klanggestalt."

 

II

 

Moreover - and this has perhaps too seldom been noted  - the process just described often corresponded to the actual productive procedure. Many of Brecht's texts arose through speaking aloud, through free fantasizing. Even when later, as Paul Dessau reports, Brecht only murmured while writing, the texts still derived from speaking aloud. Both the actor Erwin Faber[11] and the radio reporter and director Alfred Braun have reported that Brecht needed music while working. Braun describes the creation of the radio play "Macbeth" in 1927 as follows: "Die gemeinsame Arbeit begann damit, dass das Grammophon eingeschaltet wurde, und die Rhythmen moderner Schallplattenmusik untermalten pausenlos unseren Arbeitstag. Dazu ging Brecht im Zimmer auf und ab und probierte laut die Überschriften der Moritaten, scharf skandierend: Macbeth - reitet - in der Nacht - über - die Heide."[12] This text was then immediately typed out by the secretary sitting in the background, no doubt Elisabeth Hauptmann.

 

Many of the texts were therefore not written down by Brecht himself, but rather spoken and dictated; they are in this way transcripts of speech ("Sprechprotokolle"). Accordingly he wanted to publish his "Lesebuch für Städtebewohner" as a speech recording, a work in which he took up the subject of the strongly opposing attitudes conveyed in big city slang. The written text represented only a secondary, derivative form, perhaps farther from the spoken "original" than those musical settings in which the original sound design ("Klanggestalt") was preserved. Because Brecht's fantasy apparently was inspired more vividly through acoustical than through optical stimuli (whence his enduring interest in radio and telephone), the dimension of sound is a vital part of his art, which includes more songs and radio plays than previously thought.

 

If therefore a great number of Brecht's poems take singing and speaking - a sound concept ("Klangvorstellung") as their starting point, we need to ask not only about literary traditions involved, but also about those of song and speech. For Brecht the great reciters of the time, such as Joseph Kainz or Ernst von Possart, were in no way the standard. As attested by the few sound recordings he made, his models were more likely the "Moritaten" and ballad singers ("Bänkelsänger") at the fairs, as well as Frank Wedekind and Karl Valentin. In the tradition of the ballad singers, he used for his songs above all only simple, easily remembered melodies which had a certain rhythm that was neutral in relation to the poetic content. An example would be in addition to "Baals Lied" above all the "Legende vom toten Soldaten."

 

Characteristic for the "Moritat" style of the ballad singer is the frequent repetition of a simple, easily remembered melody. It does not overwhelm one as does a great work of art, but rather serves as a "neutral" vehicle for the text. The modest melodies of the ballads were used on various occasions and could inspire the listeners to provide their own additional stanzas. Precisely the repetition of a known melody was thus an essential pedagogical tool; it enabled the author as well as the recipient to take up the melody, rhythm, and rhyme and add something of their own - to become productive themselves. If Brecht played records ceaselessly while working, he did not do it because he believed in the uniqueness of the songs. Rather, the constant repetition could expose for them the model character of a melody or rhythm and inspire them to ideas of his own: the model impressed on his consciousness became an object for critical evaluation and therewith a basis for inspiration. For this reason undoubtedly Brecht added in his "Lesebuch für Städtebewohner": Playing the record once is not enough ("Einmaliges Abspielen der Platte genügt nicht"),[13]

 

The point of departure for his "Legende vom toten Soldaten" (Legend of the Dead Soldier) was not only a very simple melody, but also the experience of the World War familiar to his listeners of that time. Belonging further to these premises was the genre of heroic ballad, which he had called into question with his moritat-like "Legende." Point by point he carried to their logical extreme the methods with which a good fighting morale is instilled. In view of the hard sacrifices the soldiers had to make, he critically examined the gratitude shown by the Fatherland. Step by step, stanza by stanza Brecht showed in his song how a man, devoid of will, is transformed into a fighting machine. The song exposes manipulation by the military apparatus, it shows that almost every war depends on deception and false promises.

 

Brecht sketched a very simple melody for the "Legende vom toten Soldaten," and also performed the work publicly himself. This melody, which can hardly be called particularly delicate and sentimental ("besonders zart, sentimental")[14] consists of a fifth in descending oscillating steps within the minor chord, a model which returns twice in every stanza. The first time, the melodic phrase ends on the tonic note; the second time, astonishingly on the fifth. With this, the normal relationship of antecedent and consequent is reversed. The fifth leaves the ending open, at the same time emphasizing and calling into question the word "Helden-Tod" (a hero's death).

 

Brecht published the text and melody of his "Legende vom toten Soldaten" in the fifth lesson of his "Hauspostille," but also accepted revised adaptations by Hanns Eisler[15] and Kurt Weill.[16] Besides Brecht himself, the actor and singer Ernst Busch also made the "Legende" known to the public. Busch developed his own melodic version.[17] He kept the final fifth interval, but developed a three-part ABA Song form in which each part included two stanzas. He was thereby able to diminish the danger of the monotonous organ-grinding in the stanzas, without completely severing the tie to the tradition of the "moritat" singer.

 

 

III

We must differentiate clearly between the Brecht songs that originated vocally and those for which the starting point, rather, was speaking aloud. The "Chorale vom Manne Baal" would be included in the first group, the much stronger, recitative-like, rhythmically free "Ballade von den Abenteurern" in the second. As an example, the hit tune "Verlorenes Glück" by Sprowacker was undoubtedly the origin for the melody of the well-known "Erinnerung an die Marie A." and therefore parodied by it. From the combination of melody and text, sentimental love song and sober commentary, a peculiar emotional brokenness results.

 

Very many Brecht songs developed in this way through criticism or parody of a model. Already as a schoolboy he wanted to travesty Des Knaben Wunderhorn (the collection of supposed folk songs by the German Romantics Achim von Amim and Clemens Brentano) with a "Plunderhorn."[18] For example, the "Marsch ins Dritte Reich" is based on the melody of the English soldiers' song, "It's a long way to Tipperary,"[19] whereas in the "Hitler-Chorälen" the devout attitude of the Nazis is compared to a church congregation. The "Ballade vom Stahlhelm" depicts a then current variant of the song about Prince Eugen, and the "Moritat vom Reichstagsbrand" represents a continuation of the "Moritat von Mackie Messer." Eisler composed a biting parody of the National Socialist "Horst Wessel Lied" in the "Kälbermarsch."

 

Kipling's works provided the models for the "Ballade vom Weib und vom Soldaten" and the "Kanonensong." In the "Ballade vom Weib und dem Soldaten" Brecht even borrowed Kipling's third stanza word for word. Kipling's instructions for performance, "A soldier's song which people love to sing during a fast march," inspired Brecht to write a new refrain in a fast tempo. In this form the song was used for the 1923 premiere of Im Dickicht der Städte, then revised again in 1925 in collaboration with Franz Bruinier for a melodramatic chanson, a dialogue between a soldier who sings and a woman who speaks. But that was not the final form. Hanns Eisler changed the song in 1928 for his stage music to the Feuchtwanger piece, Kalkutta, 4. Mai (Calcutta, fourth of May). In this form the song was borrowed for the Zurich premiere of Mutter Courage, and finally re-composed once again in 1946 by Paul Dessau in the United States. The vitality of the most important Brecht songs shows itself in their variability. This principle of the variability of art came from the desire to adapt it to the respective occasion. The principle corresponded moreover to the revision of songs through singing ("Umsingepraxis") characteristic of the folk song in the suburbs of Brecht's time.

 

 

IV

 

If in the melodramatic version of the "Ballade vom Weib und dem Soldaten" singing and speaking stand opposed to one another, reference is thereby made to two levels of feeling. The singing embodies - as opposed to the speaking - the area of emotional or even intoxicated urgency that Brecht considered dangerous. That he himself on the other hand employed such stimulation while on the other protecting himself from it, can be clearly seen from the melody he composed for the "Barbara Song."[20] An emphatic Puccini-like arioso in the refrain contrasts with a dry recitative style in the stanzas. The text of the refrain warns explicitly against surrender to feeling, however: "Ja, da kann man sich doch nicht nur hinlegen .... Ja, da muß man kalt und herzlos sein" (Yes, you can't just lie down then .... Yes, you have to be cold and heartless).

 

This opposing of dry parlando and critically contradicted arioso, which originated with the author himself, became a model for many Brecht-Weill songs. Certain songs from the play Happy End can be used here as examples. Like most of Brecht's theater pieces, this one resulted from a model and a particular occasion. Among the models, in addition to the Dreigroschenoper, was the parodistic poem "Vorbildliche Bekehrung eines Branntweinhändlers," which dates from September 1920. The timely occasion was the one-hundredth anniversary, in May 1929, of the founding of the Salvation Army. Brecht's collaborator, Elisabeth Hauptmann, who at his suggestion undertook the reworking of the material, was indeed familiar with this milieu.

 

A theme of the play and of most the songs is the clash of sober realism, looking to the present, with sentimental nostalgia. This clash is fully evident in the "Bilbao Song" in which the gangster boss Bill Cracker looks back sadly to the simple but romantically adventurous beginnings of his dance hall. He mourns the loss of the genuine, raw gangster life which has been replaced by middle-class sterility. The separation between the sober present and the nostalgically longed-for past can be found in the contrast of stanzas and refrain. The music underscores the two levels of feeling in the poem. It produces the intoxication that was reflected in the previous stanza.

 

The Viennese composer Friedrich Cerha, who composed among other pieces a "Baal" opera, reminisced about a conversation with the philosopher Ernst Bloch, who apparently was present at the beginnings of Happy End and was particularly impressed by the collective work: "Das habe ja niemand `gemacht,' das hätten alle gemacht! Brecht hat improvisiert und dazu sofort gesungen, und Weill saß am Klavier. Die Leute haben Witze und Blödsinn gemacht, und es wurde gelacht und getrunken. Dann sind alle nach Hause gegangen. Der Weill hat den Kopf voll gehabt und hat sich am nächsten Morgen hingesetzt und hat dann geschrieben."[21] This report, which resembles the reminiscence by Alfred Braun quoted earlier, is further evidence for the close connection that singing and speaking had for Brecht. Art developed with him through improvising on a model, a process that was often collective. One can easily imagine Brecht becoming inspired by the ringing assonances like "Bills Ballhaus in Bilbao," while Elisabeth Hauptmann then penned the text and Kurt Weill noted down the melodic and rhythmic gestus.

 

The music in the "Bilbao Song" is a very effective agent of text illumination, but to be sure is not commentary. The opposite is the case, though, with the "Song of Mandelay," which along with the "Bilbao Song" and the "Ballade von der Höllen-Lili" was one of the few songs portraying the gangster world in Happy End. The "Mandelay Song" also has a lengthened and musically emphatic refrain following a very fast stanza, but here with a very self-contradictory text. First come the words, "Liebe ist doch an Zeit nicht gebunden" (Love isn't bound to time), followed by the cold thought of the expensive bordello price, "Johnny, mach rascher, es geht um Sekunden" (Johnny, hurry up, seconds are ticking). Thus the "timeless" love-emphasis is questioned and commented on. The lengthened melody of the refrain yearns to enjoy full pleasure in blissful oblivion, while the text reminds us of the temporal and material limitations.

 

More devoted to singing than the gangsters in Happy End are the conscripts of the Salvation Army for whom it is a means to conversion, such as in the traditional Heilsarmee Songs like "Geht hinein in die Schlacht," "Bruder, gib dir einen Stoß," "Fürchte dich nicht," or "In der Jugend goldnem Schimmer," which the Chicago gangsters smile upon as high-minded religious trash. The play's main character, the Salvation Army lieutenant Lilian Holiday, therefore strives for more modern, less obvious means. The "Matrosen Song" belongs above all in this category. The first stanza, in which sailors dream of the pleasures of whisky and cigars, of Far Eastern "Schiffsromantik" and sensual pleasures in life, as expressed in the swinging tango rhythm, does not permit religious thoughts to surface. Text, rhythm, and the polished harmony make the song one of ambience. The refrain has an rapturous character corresponding to the words, "Ja das Meer ist blau so blau" (Yes the sea is blue, so blue), but is oddly aimless in tonality. After beginning in a disguised A minor it ends surprisingly in C major. This corresponds to the continuation of the text, "Und wenn die Chose aus ist, dann fängts von vorne an" (And when the thing is over, then it starts from the beginning). In the unexpected softening to C major the transition to the last refrain is possibly hinted at. In the South Sea paradise a storm begins, bringing the sailors back to faith. Weill musically hints at this upheaval by deleting the tango rhythm for a few measures and introducing a kind of funeral march rhythm.

 

Observing the effect of the sailor song on the gangster Bill Cracker, the Salvation Army lieutenant sees that she can get him to change his ways with sentimental songs. She purposefully uses the song "Surabaya Johnny" to stop a planned bank robbery, for example. The theme of this song is seduction's triumph over reason. The woman recognizes the crudeness of her friend but still succumbs to him. At the same time, in the "Matrosen Song" one can interpret the melody of the refrain as a hidden allusion to this conflict. The blues tempo is retained. Specifically at the words, "Mein Gott, und ich liebe dich so" (My God, and I love you so), the singing changes to speaking against all traditional conventions for such a passage. The music interprets the woman's confession of love as grief -  she cannot extricate herself from the relationship. The music clarifies the attitude hidden behind the text. The second time the words "Ich liebe dich so" are sung however, the harmony modulates to an unexpected key on the word so, again emphasizing the abnormality of this love.

 

Bill Cracker is so moved by this song that he forgets his planned robbery and converts. In the end both the Heilsarmee and the gangsters declare themselves for modern capitalism and strike up the "Hosianna Rockefeller" together. Good and evil, early church choral and secular dance music are reconciled with one another here. Accompanied by harmonium and bell tones and interrupted by "hosanna" cries from the chorus, the adoration of the great capitalist then turns, however, into a crass foxtrot rhythm. For this Weill borrowed the melody of his earlier song, "Berlin im Licht," which he composed in 1928 for a week's festivities celebrating the electric lighting industry. With this, he provided a connection between Chicago and Berlin and in addition reduced the halo of Rockefeller & Co. to what it was - an illuminated advertisement.

 

V

In the Brecht settings by Hanns Eisler, a student of Schoenberg's, there was only rarely such melodic emphasis as in the "Seeräuber Jenny," "Alabama Song," or "Matrosen Song." More strongly than did Weill, the Marxist-schooled Eisler protected himself against misunderstandings and against a purely musical consumerism at the price, to be sure, of lesser success with the middle-class public. In Brecht's collaboration with Eisler the Bach Passions became the poetical-musical models. On this model are based the text and music of the proletarian "Lehrstück" Die Maßnahme, parts of the "Mutter," the "Deutsche Sinfonie," and the "Lenin Requiem." The change from the model of the ballad song to that of the Bach Passions was not only an aesthetic decision, but primarily a political one; it signified the change from the individual to the party. Eisler emphasized this superimposed aspect through the rhythmical symbol of the anapest, which since Die Maßnahme had stood for class struggle.[22] It was Eisler who in these years around 1930 also acquainted Brecht with a new form of speaking, that of the "Agitprop-Truppen." In his "Ratschlägen zur Einstudierung der Maßnahme" he demanded of the chorus that they not sing with expression, but as if giving a lecture at a mass meeting.[23]

 

Although this was certainly not the only form of speaking that served as a starting point for the Eisler settings of Brecht, it is crucial that such forms were included at all in Brecht's texts. While in his poems and songs the early Brecht, as ballad singer, still recorded essentially his own ways of speaking, later he made use of outside impulses more and more. One of the most important speaker/singers for him and for Eisler came to be Ernst Busch, who enjoyed popularity among the working class.[24] His method of speaking imprinted itself, for example, on the text and melody of the "Solidaritätslied." While Brecht usually slipped poems to be set to Eisler without commentary - trusting him to give an exact reading - he often read them aloud to Dessau, "ruhig, zart und ganz auf Sinn, so musikalisch, wie kaum ein Dichter wohl je vorgelesen hat" (softly, tenderly, and entirely with regard to the meaning, more musically than probably any poet had ever read aloud).[25]

 

In order to increase the useful value of his poems, Brecht wanted them to be tied to melodies. Not only in his Hauspostille, but also in the collection Lieder Gedichte Chöre and the Wiegenlieder für Arbeitermütter he placed great value on the melodies being published as well.[26] The music conveyed his poems in sound, in social situations; it made them easily remembered and at the same time invited variation and change.

 

 

Brecht, Gesammelte Werke, Vol. 8: Gedichte, ed. Elisabeth Hauptmann (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 196, p. 285.

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