Hartmann Simplicius Simplicissimus broadcast today

A broadcast of K A Hartmann's Simplicius Simplicissimus on BBC Radio 3 today, available online for 7 days. An anti-fascist, anti-war opera written in Germany while the Nazis were in power? K A Hartmann's Des Simplicius Simplicissimus Jugend was a brave act of conscience, even though the opera wasn't publicly performed until 1948.

Simplicius Simplicissimus is loosely based on H J Chr Grimmelshausen's 1669 book, the frontispiece pictured here. The original was set in the Thirty Years War, a defining trauma in German history, barely appreciated in the English-speaking world. "Anno Domini 1618 wohnten 12 millionen in Deutschland" goes Hartmann's introduction. "Da kam der grosse Kreig". Thirty years later, only 4 million remained. Hartmann uses an alt Deutsch idiom but it's obvious what he really means.

Like the 1669 original, Hartmann sets the opera in tableaux, each act divided into different Bild or Speil subsections, like a series of stylized woodcuts. This formality creates an otherworldly edge to the horrific tale within. A thundering, brooding overture sets the mood of overwhelming chaos. Hartmann's orchestration is spartan: simple trumpets, drums, pipes, a modernist battaglia. From this the male voices develop, chanting in goose-step rhythms.

Simplicius appears. Ein kleiner Bub bei den Schafen, kannte weder Gott noch Menschen, weder Himmel noch Hölle, weder Engel noch Teufel. Notice the pattern of opposite images, which flows throughout the opera. The text is set in rhyming couplets, typical of German tradition, and the music moves in a similar grave two-step. Simplicius is a "Holy Innocent", so pure he knows nothing of heaven or hell. In Tarot the Fool signifies someone who goes forth into the world without fear, facing danger but protected by his purity. Siegfried without the selfishness. Hartmann sets the part for high soprano though the role is male, to emphasize youth and innocence.

"Beware of the Wolf" warns the farmer. Wolf of course was Hitler's nickname. Simplicius doesn't know what a wolf is. so when the Landknecht  appears he thinks the Horseman is the vierbeiniger Schelm und Dieb the farmer warned about. "Weiss nit, Herr Wolf" cries Simplicius but the Landknecht attacks the farm and kills the Knän, die Meuder und das kleine Ursele (these archaic words give the piece a deliberate old world air). A long passage describing the horrors of war, which ends with O armes geknechtetes Deutschland. Now Simplicius has wised up and heads into the forest where he meets a Hermit (another Tarot figure). The Hermit sings music like stylized monastic chant, wavering weirdly. He teaches Simplicius to sing Unser Vater (Our Father). Give us our daily bread". Simplicius, incorrigibly naive, asks auch Käs dazu? (and cheese, too?) Eventually the Hermit dies, leaving Simplicius to face the world alone. Provocatively, Hartmann writes into the death music an echo of the Kaddish.

Another powerful intermezzo, swirling strings, plunging brass, depicting storm clouds perhaps, as Simplicismus is flown into the Governor's mansion. The soldiers boast of their tyranny and blaspheme. This chorus sound like drunken communal singing in a beer cellar, also a reference perhaps to the Nazis. This time Simplicius pipes up "that's no way to speak". "Can you hear the Mauskopf piepsen shouts the Governor. And of course, Simplicius's music is flute and clarinet. The Governor recites rather than sings, not Sprechstimme but oddly discordant. He can't figure the simpleton out.

Then Simplius speaks, at length. Words pour out at a shrill rapid pace, almost no time to take a breath. Using speech instead of song was a deliberate device by Hartmann to confront the audience. Simplicius harangues the listeners, without music to soften the effect. As she finds her strength her words are supported by drums. A militant but not military march? Then suddenly her voice rises in song. Es dröhnt die Stadt, es stapft daher, schäumende bitt're Jammersg'walt. She's joined by the chorus now representing farmers, the victims of the Thirty Years War. Gepriesen sei der Richter der Wahrheit! sings Simplicius, now transformed into a symbol of hope. Behind her muffled drums and cymbals, the choir now softly humming, and the Specher reminds us that by 1648, 8 million Germans were killed.

Significantly, Hartmann dedicated the 1955/6 revision to Carl Orff whose Carmina Burana used a similar fake medieval context, which the Nazis loved, though they missed the subversive undercurrents. Hartmann knew what it was like living in a police state. More double-edged meaning. Simplicissimus is also the title of a magazine that satirized all abuses of power, military, political and religious. It was based in Munich, where Hartmann lived. While the stylized formality presages Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, Simplicius Simplicissimus stems from the Weimar tradition of political theatre.

 If you like Simplicius Simplicissimus, try Hartmann's Gesangsszene, a prophecy of total collapse, which is eerily prescient of the present economic meltdown. Read more here. More on Hartmann and other composers of this period and persuasion here than on any other site.

The BBC Broadcast is a performance by Juliane Banse, Will Hartmann,, Peter Marsch, Ashley Holland and others, conducted by Markus Stenz with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra.  I don't know if it will come near the Munich performance some years back, which is the best recording available, (more here)