Paul Dessau was one of the most significant composers in the German Democratic Republic. Having grown up in Germany, Dessau spent the second world war years in the US, composing film scores before returning to the newly formed GDR in 1948, where he worked with Bertolt Brecht’s Berliner Ensemble. Though his first opera, The Trial of Lucullus, was condemned by the Communist party for its formalism soon after its 1951 premiere, Dessau rapidly became an influential figure in the musical life of the GDR. Despite all his state honours his music was never circumscribed by party orthodoxy; he encouraged younger East German composers to make contact with their counterparts in the west, and invited figures such as Hans Werner Henze, Luigi Nono and Aribert Reimann to visit him in Berlin.
