Alien Corn

After pudgy little Hanns Eisler, German born Hollywood composer, got into trouble last September with the House Un-American Activities Committee, his fellow composers began to think more highly than ever of his music. To show their disdain for mixing politics with art, several of them got together to sponsor an all Eisler concert in Hollywood's Coronet Theater. It was a sellout at a $6 top--all 300 seats.

Hanns's composer friends* decided to hold another all-Eisler concert in Manhattan, and engaged Town Hall for Feb. 28. Hanns promised to bring forth a new work for the occasion. It was to be called The Alien Cantata. Hanns described it modestly as "a very lyrical piece about myself."

But last week a hitch developed. Hanns was hauled up before a presiding inspector for the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Manhattan. The U.S. was ready to deport him, just as sooner or later it would deport his brother Gerhart, who had been described by the Un-American Activities Committee as the U.S.'s No. 1 Communist.

In a hearing that lasted less than half an hour, Hanns made no effort to challenge Government charges that he had joined the German Communist Party in 1926 and that he had entered the U.S. illegally in 1941. Would Hanns be deported without benefit of further musical honors? Said a non-lyrical immigration officer: "By the time of the concert, it is quite possible he may not be in the U.S."

* Aaron Copland, David Diamond, Roy Harris, Walter Piston, Roger Sessions, Randall Thompson.

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