Vierzehn Arten den Regen zu beschreiben (Fourteen ways to describe the rain), Op. 70 (1940)
(Variations for flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello and piano)

From 1940 to 1942, Hanns Eisler worked on a project commissioned by the New School for Social Research in New York to investigate new possibilities for the use of music in film. The chamber music "Vierzehn Arten den Regen zu beschreiben" (Fourteen Ways to Describe the Rain), which was completed on 18 November 1941, was also written in this context. It was based on the film study "Rain" by Joris Ivens.

Eisler dedicated the work to Arnold Schönberg, his revered teacher. With the chosen instruments, he referred to his "Pierrot Lunaire". In an introductory "anagram", the first letters of Schönberg's name are quoted: a - e flat - c - b. The composition consists of fourteen variations on this anagram, or more precisely: fourteen short pieces of different character, which were developed from the twelve-tone row of the introduction. 

In his own words, Eisler's intention with this work was "to test the most advanced material and the very complex compositional technique corresponding to it on film ... At the same time, every conceivable type of musical-dramaturgical solution was used: from the simplest naturalism of synchronised detail painting to the most extreme contrasting effects, in which the music 'reflects' on the image rather than following it."

Despite the "programmatic" title, this is not programme music per se. Reflecting" goes beyond the pictorial reference and transforms the rain into a symbol of mourning. Eisler recalled that in literature, too, rain is often equated with mourning, for example in Verlaine's poems. He said: "Fourteen ways of describing the rain also means - in a way - fourteen ways of being sad with decency. This is also part of art, although the anatomy of sadness, of melancholy, is not the central theme of the 20th century. Eisler, who had never released the feeling of sadness in his music without interruption since his maturity, as he feared its paralysing effect, combined it here with a symbol that is also capable of awakening other, contrary associations. In this way, the passive nature of this emotional attitude is, as it were, lightened and even turned into something productive.

Manfred Grabs