The International 
Hanns Eisler Society

The Board 

Since November 1996 Prof. Dr. Klaus Völker, former dean of the theatre school "Ernst Busch" Berlin, has been President of the Board.

The other members of the Board are:

Honorary Advisory Board (Präsidium)

Deceased members of the Honorary Advisory Board:

The Founding of the 
International Hanns Eisler Society

Stemming from the joint initiative of Frau Stephanie Eisler and musicologist Dr. Albrecht Dümling, the International Hanns Eisler Society was founded on May 21, 1994 at the State Institute for Music Research in Berlin. Prof. Wolfgang Hufschmidt, composer, former Dean of the Folkwang Conservatory in Essen and author of a book about Eisler, was elected president.

Comprised of over a hundred members from around the world, the Society made its public debut on November 27, 1994 at Berlin’s Academy of the Arts. The attaca ensemble (under the direction of Konstania Gourzi) performed works by Berg, Webern and Eisler – works that each had dedicated to their teacher Arnold Schönberg. The esteemed literary scholar Prof. Hans Mayer gave the keynote speech “Der Zeitgenosse Hanns Eisler.”

From left to right: Prof. Wolfgang Hufschmidt and his wife, Prof. Hans Mayer and Frau Stefanie Eisler

In his welcome address, Prof. Hufschmidt indicated that the concert program, i.e. works by Berg, Webern and Eisler dedicated to Schönberg, was no coincidence:

First, we believe Hanns Eisler deserves a place in the history of twentieth-century music associated with Vienna. In this sense, Berg’s famous dedication in his Chamber Concerto [in which he completes the saying “all good things ... (come in threes)” with musical anagrams of his, Webern and Schönberg’s names in a work involving three movements and three instrumental families], whose first movement we shall soon hear, would stand to be corrected. In other words, we would make an exception to traditional wisdom in this case and say that “all good things” come not in threes, but in fours.

Second, Eisler’s endeavor to produce music that was not only interesting and contemporary, but also socially progressive, is historically significant and deserves special attention, especially in Germany’s current political climate.

Third, we advocate for the permanence of Eisler’s work as a substantial contribution to German history and culture that goes beyond borders, walls (both physical and psychological) as well as changes of government. As our task (and that of our descendants), we would wish to bring to the fore German-German intellectual and artistic traditions that were not part of the unification treaties, in order to help facilitate a more substantive coalescence of the two countries. Such a reunification would not be thinkable without Hanns Eisler, for his life, thought and music were shaped by our common history. His body of work stands as a chronicle of twentieth-century German history like that of no other composer.

It is time for us to get to work, because getting to know and critically understand Eisler’s life and work is a formidable task that involves nothing less than reckoning with German history in the twentieth-century.

The Society Today

Eisler Symposia

Once a year, the Society holds “EislerTage,” a symposium which also involves a general convocation of the members. Carried out in cooperation with other institutions and organizations, the symposia each focus on a particular aspect of Eisler’s work. The following are the years and locations of the symposia to date:

1994, at the Academy of the Arts in Berlin

1995, at the Folkwang Conservatory in Essen

1996, in cooperation with the College of Theater Arts “Ernst Busch” in Berlin

1997, at Dresden’s Center for New Music

1998, at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig

1999, in cooperation with the Joris Ivens Foundation in Nijmegen, Holland

2000, at the Ernst Bloch Center in Ludwigshafen

2001, at the Conservatory of Music “Hanns Eisler” in Berlin  

2002, at the Academy of the Arts in Berlin

2003, at the Literaturform at the Brecht-Haus Berlin

2004, at the Conservatory of Music "Hanns Eisler" Berlin

2005, in cooperation with the Tucholsky society at the City Library of Berlin
2006, at the Konzerthaus Berlin

Additional Projects

The International Hanns Eisler Society also organizes and coordinates a variety of artistic and scholarly events connected with Eisler’s life and work. For instance, in February 2001 it organized a competition, JugendSzene politische Musik, directed toward emerging groups from Berlin and Brandenburg whose pieces exude a political bent. The 2002 Germany-wide competition will also focus on young groups who use music as a means to heighten the listener’s sense of political awareness and responsibility. Other projects include a competition for innovative and engaged choral music, the Kompositionspreis für innovativ-engagierte Chormusik, as well as a competition for the interpretation of the Second Viennese song repertory, the Interpretationspreis für Liedschaffen der Wiener Schule.