Braunfels: The Birds - op. 30

Premiered by Bruno Walter in 1920 (the year when the Phantastische Erscheinungen also received its first performance), The Birds may well be the composer’s chef-d’oeuvre; it is certainly the work that has had more performances than any other of his compositions after World War II, with productions fairly regularly since its first post-war performance in Berlin in 1994. Klaus Geitel described the experience in Die Welt: “Saturated with a closely-woven richness of inspiration … a magnificent piece of music”. Seventy years previously, Alfred Einstein enthused after the premiere: “I do not believe such a complete work of art has ever before been performed on the German operatic stage. There is an imperative at work here which calls for comparison with the Mastersingers and Pfitzner’s Palestrina.”

“The key to Braunfels’ treatment of the subject lies in the depiction of three levels of reality: the world of men, the world of the birds (or that of the imagination) and the world of the gods. Whereas in Aristophanes the men succeed in their rebellion against their gods, Braunfels here lends a more ‘Christian’ character to Zeus, father of the gods and has him punish man for his arrogance. After the city of the birds has been destroyed by the forces of heaven, the birds pay homage in a pious hymn to the power and greatness of the gods. The humans have to return home in humiliation.” (Frithjof Haas)