<img src="https://img.lemde.fr/2023/07/25/0/0/0/0/664/0/75/0/b5408ce_1690278161836-pluie-regen-cm-1929-20.jpg" srcset=" https://img.lemde.fr/2023/07/25/0/0/0/0/556/0/75/0/b5408ce_1690278161836-pluie-regen-cm-1929-20.jpg 556w, https://img.lemde.fr/2023/07/25/0/0/0/0/600/0/75/0/b5408ce_1690278161836-pluie-regen-cm-1929-20.jpg 600w, https://img.lemde.fr/2023/07/25/0/0/0/0/664/0/75/0/b5408ce_1690278161836-pluie-regen-cm-1929-20.jpg 664w, https://img.lemde.fr/2023/07/25/0/0/0/0/700/0/75/0/b5408ce_1690278161836-pluie-regen-cm-1929-20.jpg 700w, https://img.lemde.fr/2023/07/25/0/0/0/0/800/0/75/0/b5408ce_1690278161836-pluie-regen-cm-1929-20.jpg 800w" sizes="(min-width: 1024px) 556px, 100vw" alt=" " regen"="" ("rain,"="" 1929),="" by="" joris="" ivens."="" width="100%" height="auto">
Music has always loved liquid, whether it takes the form of baroque storms symbolizing divine wrath (Falvetti's Il Diluvio universale), grows impassioned in nature-loving Romanticism ("Scène aux champs" from Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique) or becomes internalized in the contemplation of an Impressionist shower (Debussy and his Jardins sous la pluie). The 20th century proved to be a great consumer of water: Electronic music captured natural sounds and hybridized them (Pierre Henry's Gouttes d'eau, Bernard Parmegiani's Aquatisme), even turning them into instruments in their own right (Tan Dun's Water Cadenza). Some plunged into underwater concerts, such as Michel Redolfi and his submerged instrument (Sonic Waters and Sea of Sound with narrator Jean-Marc Barr).
Originally composed for Dutch director Joris Ivens' film Regen (The Rain, 1929), the musical material from Hanns Eisler's 14 Ways of Describing the Rain (Vierzehn Arten, den Regen zu beschreiben), Op. 70, was recycled by the German composer in 1941. It's a series of variations in homage to Arnold Schoenberg, of whom Eisler was a brilliant disciple before turning away from an art he considered "conservative" and becoming one of Bertolt Brecht's close collaborators for the next three decades.
"Anagramm," "Introduktion," "Choral-Etüde," "Scherzando," "Sonatina," "Intermezzo," "Presto-Etüde," "Überleitung" and six untitled movements make up 14 Ways to Describe the Rain. Using the instrumentation of Schoenberg's famous Pierrot Lunaire (minus the vocal part), Eisler linked together short movements for flute, clarinet, violin or viola, cello and piano, reviving a dodecaphony (12-tone serialism) not devoid of tonal references. With its neurasthenic expressionism, its mischievous winds, its pointillistic effects, its rhythmic ostinatos (the "Presto-Etüde" piano solo beating out barrages of notes) and its final arpeggiated chords like ultimate questions, the work evokes above all the rain of departures and separations.
Faced with the Nazi threat, the composer, grandson of a rabbi, with a Jewish father and a Catholic mother, went into exile in the United States in 1933 – like Schoenberg. He collaborated with Charlie Chaplin, wrote film scores for Fritz Lang and composed instrumental music. In 1948, accused of being a Soviet agent, he returned to Europe, a victim of the witch hunt led by Senator Joseph McCarthy. He joined Brecht in the German Democratic Republic, where he wrote the national anthem. Marked by history and politics, both in his work and in his thinking, the man who wanted to turn composers "from a parasite into a fighter" remains largely unknown. His 14 Ways of Describing the Rain, an undiscovered masterpiece, bears witness to this.