Brecht's text was published in 1930 in volume two of his Versuche, and Schott was forced to take the score out of print. Brecht approached Schott directly and it was from the publisher that Hindemith learned of the demanded changes in the text, which he was not interested in setting to new music.

Schott Music published Lehrstück the same year with Hindemith's score.įrom Lehrstück to The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent īrecht almost immediately began revising, and took especial exception to Hindemith's performance notes sanctioning cuts. Performances in Vienna, Munich, Mainz, Dresden, Breslau and Frankfurt followed. Despite the controversy, the production was a critical success. (This clown scene was later reworked by Heiner Müller in his Heartplay, 1981).

While the pilot complains that he must not die, the others accept that their significance lies in being anonymous parts of a larger whole.Ī grotesque clown scene, in which the first clown, called Smith, is violently dismembered by his two friends in an attempt to alleviate his pain, caused spectators at the Baden-Baden festival to riot, according to the actor who played Smith the playwright Gerhart Hauptmann walked out. 'Cruelty, violence and death' are explored by the play, which 'broaches the subject of complicity between the helper and the forces of power and violence.' The action concerns a wrecked flight crew being brought to terms with their non-existence. Īlong with its companion, the radio cantata Lindbergh's Flight, the piece was offered as an example of a new genre, 'the teaching-play or Lehrstück', in which the traditional division between actor and audience is abolished the piece is intended for its participants only (Brecht specifically including the film makers and clowns along with the chorus.) The final chorus of Lindbergh's Flight appears at the beginning of The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent. The 50-minute piece was conceived as a multi-media performance, including scenes of physical knockabout clowning, choral sections and a short film by Carl Koch, Dance of Death, featuring Valeska Gert. 2 From Lehrstück to The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consentīrecht's programme note described the work as unfinished and as the 'product of various theories of a musical, dramatic and political nature aiming at the collective practice of the arts'.

Edward aldwell ludus tonalis