In 1948 Hanns Eisler returned to Europe from exile in the United States, where he had found refuge from the National Socialist regime. On his return he found hardly any traces of the Germany he had left in 1937 and expressed his feelings of grief and loss in many choice songs – some of which Holger Falk and Steffen Schleiermacher have selected for the enthralling and exemplary program on this second volume of their Eisler edition. These songs lend expression to Eisler’s profound love for Germany- a passion hardly to have been expected from a committed communist. He even calls for praise of Germany in the Neue deutsche Volkslieder to texts by Johannes R. Becher, and employs the folk element to counteract the poet’s tone, which at times exceeds the proper limits of pathos, and produces a tender emotional picture.
