Alternative Filmmusik zu einem Ausschnitt aus The Grapes of Wrath. Filmmusik zu Hangmen Also Die ed. Johannes C. Gall (review)

Abstract

FILM MUSIC BY HANNS EISLERHanns Eisler. Alternative Filmmusik zu einem Ausschnitt aus The Grapes of Wrath = Alternative Film Music to an Excerpt from The Grapes of Wrath. Filmmusik zu Hangmen Also Die = Film Music to Hangmen Also Die. Herausgegeben von = Edited by Johannes C. Gall. (Hanns Eisler Gesamtausgabe = Hanns Eisler Complete Edition / Edited by the Internationale Hanns Eisler Gesellschaft, Serie VI: Filmmusik, Bd. 10.) Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Hartel, 2013. [Pref. in Ger., Eng., p. vii-x; introd. in Ger., Eng., p. xi-xxx; scoring, p. 2; score, p. 3-79; appendices, p. 80-84; facsims., p. 85-96; crit. report in Ger., p. 99-125. ISMN 979-0- 004-80330-1; pub. no. SON 508. i120.]Eisler's authorship (or at least his authorization) is the focus of our attention (p. xxix), signals Johannes C. Gall to frame this ambitious critical edition, which appears as part of the series devoted to film music within the Hanns Eisler Complete Edition. As an authority on Eisler's theory and practice of music for films, Gall is the ideal scholar to take on the uneven terrain of the composer's film scores of the 1940s. Here he extends his valuable annotation of the benchmark text coauthored by the composer with Theodor W. Adorno, Com - posing for the Films (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947; Komposition fur den Film, ed. Johannes C. Gall, with accompanying DVD [Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2006]), to provide a constructive overview of Eisler and film-style and idea-in the United States. The focus upon authorial intent is borne out as Gall painstakingly reassembles two film scores from dozens of sources, many of which are fragmentary, to address the twin questions of compositional process and music's dramatic function as they pertain to Eisler. His work is laid out in performable editions of these extant scenes with extensive philological commentary and careful substantiation in the pages that follow. In both the comprehensive introduction and detailed critical remarks, Gall impressively synthesizes and builds upon the renaissance of scholarly interest in Eisler since the dissolution of the German Democratic Republic. A clear and precise English translation of the introduction by the Swiss-based musicologist Chris Walton further extends the accessibility of Gall's work.It is probably true that, above all, Eisler scholars will cherish and appreciate the detailed, evidence-oriented exactitude of Gall's editorial work with Eisler's music for The Grapes of Wrath and Hangmen Also Die, both of which I discuss in detail below. The volume promises to be a resource, however, for a broad range of academics. Film historians, scholars of music and the moving image, Brecht experts, and editors grappling with the shifting status of print in the twenty-first century have something to be gained by immersing themselves in the diverse subjects upon which Eisler's musical labor touches. The Eisler Society (Inter - nationale Hanns Eisler Gesellschaft) makes explicit its goal to publish user-friendly scores as a part of its mission to make this historically ostracized composer better known in concert as well as in the academy. With Gall's keen focus, the volume at hand not only realizes this objective, it provides an example of the unique contributions scholarly editions of film music can make to the robust discourse on music and visual media. Like Colin Matthews's edition of Benjamin Britten's 1936 music for Rowland Lee's thriller Love from a Stranger (London: Chester Music, 2000), Gall's reconstructed scores are clean, inviting concert performance for the first time since their recording at the studios of Sound Services, Inc., in late 1942 (The Grapes of Wrath) and early 1943 (Hangmen Also Die). When possible, the editor includes the orchestral scores' original time stamps. He has undertaken much of the work necessary to screen the films with live music: within the critical commentary he supplies descriptive protocols, styled after industry cue sheets, that line out the timing of each shot. …