With the Ernste Gesaenge (Serious Songs) for baritone and string orchestra Hanns Eisler created at the end of his life a key work whose complex message becomes more than clear from the music settings of texts by five different poets, together with the Hölderlin motto articulated in the prologue. It reflects – between resignation and hope – the difficult current state of societal development.

At the same time, not least by harking back to earlier works, it is a kind of quintessence of his comp...