Hanns Eisler (1898-1962) 


was one of the most remarkable and influential composers of the 
twentieth-century. Arnold Schönberg considered him to be one of his most 
important students, alongside Berg and Webern. Eisler sought to bridge the 
gulf between contemporary music and the larger public by producing engaging 
works that responded to the political and aesthetic currents of his day. Much 
of his output consists of “applied music” (angewandte Musik), in that it was 
connected with a particular function or another art form. Eisler’s 
collaboration with Bertolt Brecht spanned almost thirty years and ended with 
the poet’s death in 1956.

Eisler’s concept of a music that was both politically meaningful and 
technically sophisticated went beyond its original context, the German 
workers’ movement of the 1920s. This was manifest in his film, theater, 
choral and pedagogical music as well as Massenlieder. His writings, which 
were in part the product of collaborations with Theodor W. Adorno, Ernst 
Bloch and Bertolt Brecht, addressed with keen insight the ever relevant issue 
of music’s role in society.