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Dessau: Einstein / Otmar Suitner


Release Date: 10/15/1996 
Label:  Berlin Classics   Catalog #: 9109   Spars Code: ADD 
Composer:  Paul Dessau
Performer:  Reiner Süss,  Theo Adam,  Peter Schreier
Conductor:  Otmar Suitner
Orchestra/Ensemble:  Berlin State Opera Chorus,  Berlin Staatskapelle members
Number of Discs: 2 
Recorded in: Stereo 
Length: 1 Hours 35 Mins. 

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Notes and Editorial Reviews

As an exile from Nazi Germany, Albert Einstein helped the Americans to develop the atomic bomb in order to defeat German fascism. But in Paul Dessau’s opera of 1974, such action appears to have profound social consequences, Einstein soon realising that the power in whose hands he has placed himself breeds a new form of fascism. As a result he loses faith in the humanistic value of his work to the extent of burning a new scientific formula on which he has been working for twenty years. It’s certainly a thought-provoking scenario, but in the time-honoured tradition of Brecht, Dessau’s music generally serves the function of interpreting, rather than enhancing the text. In this respect, the score’s frequent allusions to familiar pieces of Read more music, from Bach to Richard Strauss, proves unusually disturbing. I am thinking here particularly of the scene in Act I where storm troopers vandalise Einstein’s flat to the distorted accompaniments of Bach’s Dorian Toccata for organ and the chorale, ‘Vom Himmel hoch’. Without doubt, the chilling immediacy of such episodes is brilliantly captured by the performers in this fascinating release, though in an opera where the words are all-important, it’s regrettable that Berlin Classics haven’t provided an English translation of the text.

-- Erik Levi, BBC Music Magazine
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Works on This Recording

1. Einstein by Paul Dessau
Performer:  Reiner Süss (Bass), Theo Adam (Bass), Peter Schreier (Tenor)
Conductor:  Otmar Suitner
Orchestra/Ensemble:  Berlin State Opera Chorus,  Berlin Staatskapelle members
Period: 20th Century 
Written: East Germany 
 Date of Recording: C1978 
Length: 95 Minutes 9 Secs. 
Language: German 
Notes: Composition written: East Germany (1969 - 1973). 

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