Listening to Human Rights: Class Conflict in Hanns Eisler's Deutsche Sinfonie.

This article examines Austrian composer Hanns Eisler’s Deutsche Sinfonie, Op. 50 (1935–1958), focusing on its eighth and ninth movements—the Peasant Cantata and Workers Cantata—as central to its political and human rights themes. Created in collaboration with poet Bertolt Brecht, the symphony uses twelve-tone composition and choral elements to critique militarism, capitalism, and class conflict in Europe, portraying the exploitation of peasants and industrial workers within a Marxist–Leninist framework. The work is contextualized historically and culturally, linking its themes to civil and social rights articulated in the Weimar Constitution and the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, thus contributing to what is termed the "global human rights imagination." Despite initial Cold War-era reception challenges, the Deutsche Sinfonie has gained renewed scholarly and performance interest post-German reunification for its enduring engagement with issues of social justice and human dignity.