A few Brecht notes

RUDOLF SCHLICHTER (1890-1955)
Bildnis Bert Brecht, um 1926
Städtische Galerie
im Lenbachhaus, München

I've been a bit obsessed with Bertol Brecht (good to see hes up 2% in popularity on IMDB) these last couple days, and I don't see my curiosity receding any time soon. In the States he isn't much known, or remembered (perhaps in theater classes this is not the case), though Mack the Knife from Kurt Weil's Three Penny Opera is recognizable and reinterpreted to this day (scroll down to see a few interpretations). I was only marginally familiar with his work, and that, only because my father was in the theatre in Mexico, where Brecht's humour and politics, were and are appreciated. One of his more famous play's, "The Good Person of Szechwan" was recently put on at the Young Vic theatre.

The Good Soul of Szechuan - Video trailer

Brecht's language just strikes me as lyrical and flowing. Not something I, before living in Germany, ever associated with the German language, perhaps a bit programmed by the caricature of its harsh delivery in American pop culture, or its relegation (adulation?) as the language of reification in academia. Its a wonder, and a discovery for me, that Brecht, the father of epic theater, crafts such mellifluous verse.

I was particularly, moved by a song or poem recently called the "Erinnerung and die Marie A" or in English "Memory of Marie A." Listen to the language of the first verse.

Here is the text in translation: (Knut W. Barde)

On that day in the blue moon of September  
Quietly under a young plum tree  
Is where I held her, the still pale love
In my arm like a lovely dream.
And above us in the beautiful summer sky
was a cloud, which I saw for a long time
It was very white and immensely high
And when  I looked up, it was never more.

Since that day many, many moons have
Quietly swum down and past.
The plum trees probably have been chopped off
And you ask me, how is it with the love?
So I tell you:  I cannot remember.  
And yet, sure, I do know what you mean  
But her face, I really do not know it anymore 
I only still know:  I once kissed it.

Even the kiss, I would have forgotten it long ago
had the cloud not been there
That I still know and  will I always know
Very white it was and came from above.
Perhaps the plum trees are still flowering
And that women now perhaps has her seventh child
But that cloud blossomed only for minutes
And when I looked up, it already was disappearing in the wind.

Here is the poem in the original German:

An jenem Tag im blauen Mond September
Still unter einem jungen Pflaumenbaum
Da hielt ich sie, die stille bleiche Liebe
In meinem Arm wie einen holden Traum.
Und über uns im schönen Sommerhimmel
War eine Wolke, die ich lange sah
Sie war sehr weiß und ungeheuer oben
Und als ich aufsah, war sie nimmer da.

Seit jenem Tag sind viele, viele Monde
Geschwommen still hinunter und vorbei
Die Pflaumenbäume sind wohl abgehauen
Und fragst du mich, was mit der Liebe sei?
So sag ich dir: Ich kann mich nicht erinnern.
Und doch, gewiß, ich weiß schon, was du meinst
Doch ihr Gesicht, das weiß ich wirklich nimmer
Ich weiß nur mehr: Ich küsste es dereinst.

Und auch den Kuss, ich hätt' ihn längst vergessen
Wenn nicht die Wolke da gewesen wär
Die weiß ich noch und werd ich immer wissen
Sie war sehr weiß und kam von oben her.
Die Pflaumenbäume blühn vielleicht noch immer
Und jene Frau hat jetzt vielleicht das siebte Kind
Doch jene Wolke blühte nur Minuten
Und als ich aufsah, schwand sie schon im Wind.