What turned a safe, classical composer into a cutting-edge artist? Dessau translated his experiences of war, antisemitism, fascism, communism and more into extraordinary work. His art songs should receive more attention.
Federal Archives (Photo 183-N1215-0008, cropped / Katscherowski, married Stark, CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE), Public Domain
Paul Dessau’s musical output has often been reduced to certain pieces he composed from 1949 to 1979, the years where he lived in the GDR and became one of the most significant composers who set Bertolt Brecht’s texts to music. In reality, Dessau’s work is much more varied than that. This statement is especially true for his art songs which permeate his entire oeuvre, from his beginnings as a composer up until his death in 1979. Ultimately, one could go so far as to argue that listening to the songs of Paul Dessau is like tracing the history of the 20th century through music.
Paul Dessau was born in 1894. His was a musically gifted family, his father being a talented amateur singer. From 1909 until 1913, Dessau studied in Berlin and there was nothing exceptional concerning his biography as a composer during these years. In his piece Verkündigung (Propagation) from 1914, Dessau sets a text by Richard Dehmel to music, choosing a typical turn-of-the-century musical style. Dehmel was a poet who was also popular amongst other composers such as Richard Strauss and Arnold Schönberg.
The First World War subsequently rendered Paul Dessau a pacifist, “detesting Prussian drill”, as he would later state in an interview. Nevertheless, his compositions would only become explicitly critical of society in the late 1920s. In the decade before that, Dessau’s pieces were composed in a broadly neoclassicist style. One of his most popular works from this time was the Concertino for Solo Violin with Flute, Clarinet and French Horn.
His job as a conductor at the famous Alhambra cinema in Berlin meant Dessau began engaging with popular music, as well as the particular musical style which would characterize his Brecht compositions after the Second World War. His Räuberballade vom roten Coquillard (Robber Ballad of the Red Coquillard), music accompanying a poem by François Villon is one such socially critical chanson from the early 1930s, where Paul Dessau displays his newly acquired musical means.
Since Paul Dessau was Jewish, he decided to go into exile in 1933. During his time in Paris, Dessau met René Leibowitz who introduced him to twelve-tone composition. Perhaps it was the fact that the Nazis were contemptuous of twelve-tone music which led Dessau to produce works in this style before long. One of Dessau’s first compositions using twelve-tone technique is the short Hölderlin song Abbitte (Apology), written in 1937 for his wife Gudrun.
Dessau would also re-discover his Jewish musical origins during his exile. A good example of a piece written in this musical style is his Hebräisches Hirtenlied (Hebrew Shepherd’s Song) from 1931.
In 1942, Paul Dessau’s mother was murdered by the Nazis in Theresienstadt, which irrevocably turned him into an anti-fascist. Dessau made the acquaintance of Bertolt Brecht one year later, heralding the beginning of a fruitful collaboration lasting until Brecht’s death in 1956. One piece from this partnership is the Lied vom achten Elefanten (Song of the Eighth Elephant), which Dessau composed in 1947.
It seems that Brecht’s decision to go to East Germany after his own return from exile motivated Dessau to follow suit. At the time, both were equally eager to contribute to creating a society no longer prone to fascism.
However, Dessau soon found himself at the center of a conflict with communist cultural bureaucracy. His relationship with the communist state was ambivalent from then onwards. Although he continued to be an anti-fascist and even contributed propaganda songs, Dessau always kept himself at a distance from the communist political elite and cultivated a more avant-garde musical style as much as possible.
From 1963 onwards, art songs contemplating themes like nature and love would become the central element of his compositions. Best-known from these years are his 27 Lieder (27 Songs), set to poems by Georg Maurer. In the 1970s, Dessau composed music to texts written by Pablo Neruda, reacting to the military coup in Chile. One such example is the song Bombardement (Bombardment) from 1974.
During the second half of the 1970s, Dessau’s wife Ruth Berghaus came into conflict with official cultural policies and was forced to resign. Dessau’s song Herz, mein Herz (Heart, my heart) was intended to comfort his wife.
Dessau died in 1979 after having effectively withdrawn from public life. In his last will, he refused a state funeral.