THE PACKERS:
But don’t try to take it off!
It will have to see you through.
THE BLACK STRAW HATS:
Aim forever at the skies
And repent of what you do.
THE PACKERS:
Do what you please!
THE BLACK STRAW HATS:
But always do
It with a guilty conscience
For as a spectator
And self-underrater
You do have a conscience.
Selling and buying
Ye merchants of meat
Don’t forget the extensible
Greater than great
Quite indispensable
(Especially when your sale is fraudulent)
Eternal, undying
Word of God.
JOAN:
So anyone down here who says there’s a God
And that even if no one can see Him
He can, invisibly, help us all the same
Should have his head bashed against the sidewalk
Until he croaks.
SLIFT: Hey, you people, shut that girl up! Say something, anything, but make it loud!
SNYDER: Joan Dark, aged twenty-five, contracted pneumonia in the Chicago stockyards in the service of God, warrior and martyr!
JOAN:
And those preachers who tell the people they can rise in spirit
Even if their bodies are stuck in the mud, they too should have their heads
Bashed against the sidewalk. The truth is that
Where force rules only force can help and
In the human world only humans can help.
ALL (sing the first verse of the hymn to drown out Joan’s words):
Shower the rich with Thy treasure! Hosanna!
And virtue and leisure! Hosanna!
Pile high the rich man’s plate! Hosanna!
Give him the city and state! Hosanna!
Give to the winner in full measure! Hosanna!
During these declamations loudspeakers announce disastrous news:
‘POUND CRASHES! BANK OF ENGLAND CLOSES DOORS FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THREE HUNDRED YEARS!’
‘EIGHT MILLION UNEMPLOYED IN THE USA!’
‘FIVE YEAR PLAN SUCCEEDS!’
‘BRAZIL DUMPS A WHOLE YEAR’S COFFEE CROP INTO THE OCEAN!’
‘SIX MILLION UNEMPLOYED IN GERMANY!’
‘THREE THOUSAND BANKS CRASH IN THE USA!’
‘EVERY BANK AND STOCK EXCHANGE IN GERMANY CLOSED BY GOVERMENT ORDERS!’
‘POLICE BATTLE UNEMPLOYED OUTSIDE HENRY FORD’S DETROIT FACTORY!’
‘THE MATCH TRUST, THE BIGGEST TRUST IN EUROPE, FAILS!’
‘FIVE YEAR PLAN COMPLETED IN FOUR YEARS!’
Under the impact of the disastrous news, all those who are not at the moment engaged in declaiming shout wild insults at one another, such as: ‘Lousy hog butchers, why’d you have to slaughter so much?’ ‘No-good stockbreeders, why couldn’t you raise more livestock?’ ‘You stupid skinflints, why didn’t you hire more workers and pay decent wages. Who’d you expect to eat our meat?’ ‘The middlemen are to blame for the high price of meat!’ ‘The grain profiteers are to blame for the high price of livestock!’ ‘It’s all the fault of the railroads with their freight rates!’ ‘It’s all the fault of the banks with their high rates of interest!’ ‘Who can pay such rents for cattle barns and grain elevators?’ ‘Why don’t you reduce your output?’ ‘We have reduced our output, but you haven’t!’ ‘It’s all your fault!’ ‘Nothing will get any better until they string you up!’ ‘You should have gone to jail long ago!’ ‘How come you’re still running around loose?’
ALL (sing the second and third verses of the hymn. Joan can no longer be heard):
Give all Thy blessings to Croesus, Hosanna!
Love him to pieces, Hosanna!
Temper Thy wrath, Hosanna!
Do not deprive him that hath, Hosanna!
Give him whatever he pleases, Hosanna!
Joan can be seen to stop speaking.
Help Thine own class which hath helped Thee, Hosanna!
Not stinting their spending, Hosanna!
Throw Hatred overboard, Hosanna!
Laugh with the laughers, reward, Hosanna!
Criminal greed with a happy ending, Hosanna!
During the last verse the girls have tried to spoon some soup into Joan. Twice she has pushed the dish away. The third time she grabs it, holds it up and pours it out. Then she collapses and falls back into the girls’ arms, mortally stricken, without sign of life. Snyder and Mauler go over to her.
MAULER: Give her the flag!
The flag is given to her. It falls out of her hands.
SNYDER: Joan Dark, aged twenty-five, died of pneumonia in the stockyards, in the service of God, warrior and martyr.
MAULER:
When purity
Unmarred and whole
And loving kindness beckoned
They shook vile men like you and me
Arousing in our hearts a second
And better soul!
All stand for a long while, speechless with emotion. At a sign from Snyder all the flags are lowered over her until she is entirely covered. The scene is suffused with a rosy glow.
THE PACKERS AND STOCKBREEDERS:
Mankind’s inbuilt aspiration
From its primal childhood years
Is to win its soul a station
In the top celestial spheres.
While the stars of God’s creation
Draw him to a higher level
Still his flesh must seek the devil
Dangling in the void downstairs.
MAULER:
A razor-sharp dichotomy
Cutting deep into my breast
Fashions two souls from my soul.
Though do-gooding suits me best
Meanwhile business interest
Also plays a certain role
Unconsciously.
ALL:
Man, two warring souls reside
Deep inside you.
No use trying to decide
For you can’t help having two.
With your other self contending
Cleaving, clawing, splitting, rending
Keep the good and keep the evil
Keep the god and keep the devil
In a conflict never-ending!
Notes and Variants
LINDBERGH’S FLIGHT
Texts by Brecht, Hindemith and the organisers
FROM A LETTER TO ERNST HARDT
I’ve been thinking about the radio broadcast of Lindbergh’s Flight, especially the planned public rehearsal. It could be used for an experiment, a way of showing, at least visually, how listener participation in the art of radio could be made possible. (I regard such participation as necessary if the radio play is to become an ‘art’.)
I suggest the following little stage set for this demonstration:
The enclosed statement of principles concerning the use of radio is projected on a large canvas. This projection remains in place during the whole play. On one side of the stage (with the screen behind them) are the broadcasting apparatus, the singers, musicians, speakers, etc.; on the other side, screened off so as to suggest a room, a man sits at a desk in his shirt sleeves with a musical score and hums, plays and sings the part of Lindbergh. This is the listener. Since quite a few specialists will be present, it will probably be necessary to have on one side a sign saying ‘The Radio’ and on the other a sign saying ‘Listener’. Before the thing starts, I should like to ask you, dear Herr Hardt, to say a few words about this experiment and the theory behind it, a statement of which I enclose and which we shall have an opportunity to discuss. This is a bother for you, but I know of no one else who could do it.
P.S. Enclosed also the complete manuscript.
The new parts are not set to music, they are just recited. The speaker of Lindbergh’s part makes a caesura at the end of each line!
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[From Letters 1913–1956, no. 148, thought to date from July 1929. Hardt was the former Intendant of the Cologne Schauspielhaus, and had worked with both Weill and Brecht. He became the first head of the West German Radio (Cologne) in July 1927. He would be removed by the Nazis in 1933.]
MUSIC FOR RADIO
Among the tasks of the radio one of the most extensive is its devotion to present-day musical creativity. The German Radio goes still further. For some time it has been actively involved in contemporary production, as animator and patron of a branch of literature especially intended for broadcasting. In addition to existing musical works of art that were created under different conditions it proposes to provide original music for radio.
Whereas up to now commissions have been given to individual composers, German Radio’s cooperation with Deutsche Kammermusik Baden-Baden appeals ‘to one and all’ for the creation of specific radio music.
The task set was the creation of a musical work of art tailored to the present state of radio technology and the acoustic limitations of the microphone. This art can be acquired by observation and experience, and is not so difficult as meeting the other requirement of a work designed specifically for the radio: namely creating music stylistically suited to the medium. Radio music does not address itself to a particular stratum of society, but to humanity at large; it includes listeners whose lives owe their first experience of spiritual and artistic values to the radio. The formal and stylistic demands that have to be placed on any radio music will be so exhaustively handled by experts in the days to follow that there is no call for us to go into them further.
What we are presenting is experiments (‘Versuche’), experiments that can by no means cover all the significant possibilities of this time – experiments that will limit themselves to the use of today’s compositional and instrumental techniques to create a clear-sounding music suited to the radio.
[The programme for the ‘First performance of original music for radio’ then followed, with the names of the participants as follows:]
1. ‘Lindbergh’s Flight’, by Brecht – Hindemith – Weill
Lindbergh – Josef Witt
‘The Fogbank’ and ‘The City of New York’ – Johannes Willy
‘The Snowstorm’ – Oskar Kálmán
‘Sleep’ – Betty Mergler
Chorus – Hugo Holle’s Madrigal Society
Orchestra – Frankfurt Radio Orchestra
Conductor – Hermann Scherchen
Producer – Ernst Hardt
[Cited in Rudolf Stephan’s introduction to Paul Hindemith’s Sämtliche Werke, vol. 1,6 (Schott, Mainz, 1982).]
TO BE PROJECTED
In obedience to the principle that the State shall be rich and man shall be poor, that the State shall be obliged to have many possibilities and man shall be allowed to have few possibilities, where music is concerned the State shall furnish whatever needs special study, special apparatus and special abilities; the individual however shall learn all that is needed for enjoyment. The enjoyment of music demands that there should be no possibility of distraction. Free-roaming feelings aroused by music, special inconsequential thoughts such as may be entertained when listening to music, physical exhaustion such as easily arises from merely listening to music are distractions from music and take away from its enjoyment. To avoid these distractions the thinking man shares in the music, thus obeying the principle that doing is better than feeling, by humming the missing parts and following the music with his eyes as printed, or joining others in singing aloud. Thus the State provides incomplete music but the individual completes it.
[From an early typescript cited by Reiner Steinweg in Brechts Modell der Lehrstücke (Suhrkamp, 1976), p. 38. Sometimes headed ‘Theory’, this text is shown projected in the illustration in Brecht on Theatre, figure 9. A slightly modified version was included, along with this photograph, in Versuche 1, ‘Explanations’, cited below.]
INTRODUCTORY SPEECH
Most of you will have heard the radio broadcast of Brecht’s Lindbergh’s Flight, as a kind of acoustic depiction. The aim was to portray the experience of Lindbergh as a human being, with emphasis on what he felt. The listener’s sensitivity was aroused, and the general effect was to subject him to an artistic suggestion that would give him illusions. Since this is only one possible way of realising such works, we want to hold a concert performance which will at the same time exemplify a different application such as would also mean a different use of the radio.
On one side of the stage you will see the position of the Radio, on the other side the listener. And you will see how Radio and listener together perform the work, playing into one another’s hands, as it were, in such a way that the Radio delivers to the listener’s home whatever the listener himself would have difficulty in producing but nevertheless needs in order to perform his own part. As for the listener, he takes the (central) leading part, i.e. that which is able to educate him. In the case of Lindbergh’s Flight he plays Lindbergh. The Radio supplies the voice of the opposing elements – the fog, the storms, sleep, the choruses of two continents encouraging the airman to take off and awaiting his arrival – but also various primitive noises to further the illusion, such as the sound of engine, wind and water.
You may retort that this experiment (tomorrow night) cannot be instantly realised (e.g. by broadcasting it from the German stations). To say nothing of the organisational problems – like sending musical scores to the listeners’ homes, and (above all) launching a great propaganda campaign – or the paedagogical difficulties (the need to train broad masses of people in music).
Above all you will ask why should the listener make music just for himself, if nobody is going to listen to him. Well, he can be assured of the lift that a man will get from singing the Lindbergh part, and identifying himself with a tough character who battles to achieve his end. (To tell the truth, this is not how Brecht himself sees it. His theorising does not lead him to take the slightest interest in the listener’s emotional life.) At the same time Brecht would reject any involvement for enjoyment’s sake, because in this case [a qualification added by Brecht] it is a matter of paedagogy. So his answer to the question of what compels anyone to join in and get educated is: simply, the State.
To get some idea of the paedagogical value of such an artistic exercise from the State’s point of view, try to imagine the boys’ schools joining with the Radio to perform a work like this. Thousands of young people would be brought in their classrooms to adopt that heroic attitude which this work shows Lindbergh adopting in his flight.
Of course our little demonstration cannot be other than incomplete, since we are forced to make use of yesterday’s performance without further rehearsal; that is to say, a performance which was not conceived for this new objective. Brecht may call for essential changes at certain points.
[Cited by Reiner Steinweg in Brechts Modell der Lehrstücke (Suhrkamp, 1976) from TS in the Brecht Archive. Steinweg suggests that it may have been dictated by Brecht as material for Ernst Hardt’s talk to the audience at the performance on 28 July. Alternatively it may have been written by Hardt himself.]
NOTE TO THE TEXT
The first of the Versuche, Lindbergh’s Flight, is a radio Lehrstück for boys and girls. It is not an account of a flight across the Atlantic, but a paedagogical operation. At the same time it is a hitherto untested application of the radio: not the most important by a long way, but one of a series of experiments (‘Versuche’) in which a piece of imaginative writing is used as an exercise.
The photograph is reproduced so as to stimulate new applications of this kind.
[From Brecht: Versuche 1, 1930, introducing the text with his additions and the Explanatory Notes which follow. By then the play had been revised so as to replace the hero Lindbergh by ‘The Lindberghs’, plural, a collective personality.]
EXPLANATORY NOTES
The Lindberghs’ Flight for instruction, not for pleasure. The Lindberghs’ Flight is val
ueless unless learned from. It has no value as art which would justify any performance not intended for learning. It is an object of instruction and falls into two parts. The first part (songs of the elements, choruses, sounds of water and motors, etc.) is meant to help the exercise, i.e. introduce it and interrupt it – which is best done by an apparatus. The other, paedagogical part (the Flier’s part) is the text for the exercise: the participant listens to the one part and speaks the other. In this way a collaboration develops between participant and apparatus, in which expression is more important than accuracy. The text is to be spoken and sung mechanically; a break must be made at the end of each line of verse; the part listened to is to be mechanically followed.[. . .]
The radio not to be served but to be changed. The Lindberghs’ Flight is not intended to be of use to the present-day radio but to alter it. The increasing concentration of mechanical means and the increasingly specialised training – tendencies that should be accelerated – call for a kind of resistance by the listener, and for his mobilisation and redrafting as a producer.
The Baden-Baden radio experiment. The employment of The Lindberghs’ Flight and the use of radio in its changed form was shown by a demonstration at the Baden-Baden music festival of 1929. On the left of the platform the radio orchestra was placed with its apparatus and singers, on the right the listener, who performed the Flier’s part, i.e. the paedagogical part, with a score in front of him. He read the sections to be spoken without identifying his own feelings with those contained in the text, pausing at the end of each line; in other words, in the spirit of an exercise. At the back of the platform stood the theory being demonstrated in this way.
Why can’t The Lindberghs’ Flight be used as an object of instruction and the radio be changed? This exercise is an aid to discipline, which is the basis of freedom. The individual will reach spontaneously for a means to pleasure, but not for an object of instruction that offers him neither profit nor social advantages. Such exercises only serve the individual in so far as they serve the State, and they only serve a State that wishes to serve all men equally. Thus The Lindberghs’ Flight has no aesthetic and no revolutionary value independently of its application, and only the State can organise this. Its proper application, however, makes it so ‘revolutionary’ that the present-day State has no interest in sponsoring such exercises.
Brecht Collected Plays: 3: Lindbergh's Flight; The Baden-Baden Lesson on Consent; He Said Yes/He Said No; The Decision; The Mother; The Exception & the ... St Joan of the Stockyards (World Classics) Page 31
