Work in the angles

A CLUE to understanding the music of German composer Stefan Wolpe (1902-1972) is in the title of Muziektheater Transparant's cabaret-style show – Wolpe! Welche Farbe hat der Vogel?. The question "What colour is the bird?" has numerous connotations in relation to Wolpe.

Firstly, it's almost impossible to pigeon-hole his music. The one constant is its challenging nature, both for performer and listener. Wolpe's friend and fellow composer Elliott Carter refers to the "comet-like radiance" and "breathtaking adventurousness and originality" that distinguished his life and music.

Wolpe's daughter, London-based concert pianist Katharina Wolpe, echoes this description of his distinct musical voice: "Everything he did all his life came from inside his own musical brain, there were no influences virtually of anyone else, which gives his music an awkwardness, although he influenced other composers. He wasn't very practical, he wrote what he heard in his head."

Then there is the strong political colour, particularly the anti-fascist songs Wolpe wrote during Hitler's rise to power, before fleeing Germany in 1933, first to Palestine then New York. The line "What colour is the bird?" is taken from the poem An Anna Blume written by the German artist Kurt Schwitters.

Pianist Johan Bossers, a significant driving force behind the Edinburgh production, says Wolpe's songs and music also ask questions of the listener: "What is your political colour? What do you believe in? We hope to confront people with strong ideas, especially conflict, and the discussion and expression of clear alternatives in politics."

A different perspective on politics and music, and how they relate to and influence each other, plays an integral part in this fascinating production. Actress Viviane de Muynck is a colossal and formidable presence. Like matron, she lectures and hectors the audience with a potent mix of words and Sprechgesang (spoken song). The singing is left to Gunnar Brandt-Sigurdsson, whose collaborations with Bossers on Wolpe lieder kickstarted the whole project. Bossers's always intelligent reading of Wolpe's ideas-laden and often relentless piano music offers some truly inspirational moments of clarity and beauty in a show that rewards curiosity and concentration.

The three present 13 of Wolpe's songs, mostly written between 1929 and 1932. These are similar in style and in political content and context to Kurt Weill's songs and include Ballad of the Widows of Osseg, set to a Bertolt Brecht text, and Wolpe's own take on Lenin's observations about "an oppressed class, that doesn't endeavour to learn".

Katharina Wolpe says her father wrote hundreds of wonderful songs full of "acid, biting sarcasm" – many on a daily basis for the Mausefalle (Mousetrap) theatre company. However, she believes a substantial number didn't survive the war after he fled to America. Theatre companies at that time performed in cafes, bars and on the streets as well as in large theatres. From 1931 to 1933, Wolpe was music director of the prestigious UnterdenLinden Theatre in Berlin, patronised not only by left-wing supporters, but also by the bourgeoisie, drawn by the art, and even Nazis to keep an eye on left-wing activities.

The songs are punctuated by witty philosophical texts ranging from Plato to Lenin and Alain Badiou. These take an ironic approach towards Wolpe's utopian dream, says Bossers, rendering it not so much a destination but an aspiration that guides and gives direction to daily life: "To have a utopia, society has to have strong ideas which in fact are always conflictual – you don't have to look after a paradise where everyone thinks or works in the same way. It's more abstract with thinking seen as a field of constant conflict, looking after a possible breach in a given situation or status quo; in short, creativity!"

Attempting to combine completely different things is a tension that exists in much of Wolpe's work and is what attracted him to Dadaism. His music is often compared to cubist paintings where something is shown from multiple angles. Bossers recalls watching a 1930s documentary where images of a simple action, such as throwing a stone, were repeated from different angles. "It's like the music of Wolpe where he proposes a certain motif, rhythm, harmony and tries to show you this from different angles at the same time."

This approach can be a challenge for the listener as well as the performer. In the show, Bossers plays five of the seven parts of Wolpe's monumental piano work, the aptly named Battle Piece. Katharina Wolpe, although she performs a lot of her father's piano music, is happy to leave this work to tougher, younger pianistic tigers. "I've never managed to like it, it's a horror and incredibly relentless. The trouble is people that have the technical ability don't necessarily have the mental and emotional understanding. Unlike a painting which you can look at until you get the hang of it, this music flies by so quickly it's very, very difficult for trained musicians and the audience alike."

Bossers recalls Picasso's advice to Cocteau that he would have to "learn to be quicker than beauty". While Wolpe's music might be quick, the compositional process took a long time – Battle Piece was written over five years. The key to understanding the music is through its "rhythmical vividness", adds Bossers. Just as the composer was well known for being in the middle of explaining something only to jump up and do something else, this impulsiveness is ever-present in the subtle changes in rhythmic direction. "This is not music to dream or enjoy beauty, although, at the same time, the harmonies are fantastic. With his music we wanted to show another kind of aesthetic that doesn't try to construct strong and clear forms, giving the impression it can fall apart. Wolpe was always looking for the perfect form to express himself, but the urge to communicate was bigger than the urge to create the perfect form."

This need to always be developing new information is similar to the latter works of Mahler, points out Bossers, and Beethoven. "Like Beethoven, Wolpe uses sound as a gift of energy, not something to please but sound as part of our physical world – direct and without any intermediation. Then there is the constant presence of a deconstructing force, the danger every moment of falling apart through it's unbearable intensity."

Wolpe was highly sought after as a teacher by pupils such as Morton Feldman and David Tudor, and he was director of the Black Mountain College, where he often worked with John Cage – one of the happiest times of his life, recalls Katharina Wolpe. However, his music was rarely performed and he was never commissioned in his lifetime, which she maintains was bad for his development as a composer.

"He seldom got the opportunity to hear or judge what he had written, or he had to endure inaccurate or hopeless performances, which enraged him. My father was before his time. Music was so different then, it was either strictly 12-tone or tonal, you had to fit into one or the other. I've heard recordings of some of the pieces that will be performed in Edinburgh and I think my father would be bouncing in his grave with delight."

• Wolpe! Welche Farbe hat der Vogel? is at the Hub, 29 and 30 August, 8pm, as part of the International Festival