I’ve had the pleasure of singing selections from Hanns Eisler’s Hollywood Liederbuch a couple of times in the past decade, most recently last year while pursuing my doctorate at the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati. In this latest go-round, I developed a greater appreciation for the historical context of Eisler’s writing. His flight from Europe during the Nazi ascent to power landed him in Hollywood where he wrote this songbook. The combination of Eisler’s biting compositional style with Brecht’s poignant texts makes for blistering song. Roswitha Trexler’s takes on the songbook are laser-focused and painted with a supersized palette.