Paul Dessau: Edition

Paul Dessau (1894–1979) was among the most principled and hard-working composers whose career flourished under uneasy circumstances in postwar East Germany after the country’s partition. His exceptionally diverse output is reflected in the heterogeneous contents of this compendium, the value of which is unrivalled as an introduction to a vital figure in the culture of his time and place. His political sympathies may be deduced from his frequent collaborations with the radical playwright Bertholt Brecht, and by the dedication of his Orchestral Music No.3 to Lenin. But he also wrote film music for early movies of Walt Disney, a dyed-in-the-wool anti-Communist, and his art both embodies and transcends his surroundings.