Eisler: Die Letzte Nacht; Couplets - H K Gruber

Eisler: Die Letzte Nacht; Couplets - H K Gruber

C5434 (Capriccio Records, CD, 2 discs)

DDD
FIRST RELEASE (7 January 2022)

Playing time: 66'30"/60'42" - TT 127'12"
Tracks: 25 + 25
Booklet pages: 80
℗ 1996/1999 Österreichischer Rundfunk
© 2022 Capriccio Records
Main country of recording: Austria
Country of manufacture: Germany
Reviewer: Gerald Fenech
Review of Eisler: Die Letzte Nacht; Couplets - H K Gruber published on 4 February 2022

Wolfram Berger, narrator
Klangforum Wien
H K Gruber, chansonnier, conductor
Ensemble 'die reihe'
Adolf Henning, piano

Hanns Eisler (1898-1962):

Couplets; Ballads
Orchestral Suites 2-4
Die Letzte Nacht

'It would be worth striving towards a style that can combine the highest level of craftsmanship, originality, and high quality with the greatest popularity and folksiness.' – Hanns Eisler. This latest release in Capriccio's Hanns Eisler Edition contains songs and chansons from all periods of Eisler's creative life. It also contains some of the fascinating orchestral suites that he had mostly assembled as adaptations of film scores from the 1930s. Notably, the programme contains the world premiere recording of his incidental music for Die letzte Nacht – the epilogue to Karl Kraus' monumental, satirical work The Last Days of Mankind. The mastermind behind this project was the great composer, conductor, and chansonnier H K Gruber, arguably one of the greatest authorities on Eisler.

Recorded 12 April 1996 in Weiner Konzerthaus and 24 October 1999 in the Musikverein, Vienna, Austria