Solidarity Song: the Hanns Eisler Story

In contrast with Kurt Weill, who acquired world-wide fame with the music he composed for Bertolt Brecht‘s plays, composer Hanns Eisler reaped far less renown with the same activity. His life was characterised by loneliness and persecution: as a confirmed communist he first had to flee from the fascists in Germany and later from McCarthy‘s witch hunts in the United States. But also the regime in communist East Germany was not particularly well-disposed towards him. SOLIDARITY SONG is made up of interviews with friends and contemporaries of Eisler‘s, recently discovered archive footage in which he can be seen and heard with Bertolt Brecht, and recent recordings of his work, some performed by the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie and the Berlin Rundfunk orchestra. Director Larry Weinstein (Toronto, 1956) is specialised in portraits of modern composers. Before he made SOLIDARITY SONG in 1996, he made a film about Kurt Weill (SEPTEMBER SONG, 1994).