© Kurt Tucholsky Literaturmuseum
Hanns Eisler set 40 socially critical texts by Kurt Tucholsky to inspiring and apt music in the 1920s/30s as well as in 1957-1961, not least due to the initiative of the singer Ernst Busch. Eisler himself writes: The chansons “are intended for gatherings, events of all kinds”. Originally planned for a small orchestra, “the piano part here is so simple that amateurs can play it. It is important to cultivate the genre of political chanson again and again. After all, it is also an entertainment to laugh at enemies, to mock them, to ridicule them.” On Tucholsky’s birthday, we should therefore remember these brilliant songs and ballads: