Before the duo started,
Heiner Goebbels especially admired the capabilities of
Don Cherry, with whom about 15 years later he engaged in his project
Der Mann im Fahrstuhl, adapted from
Heiner Müller. In 1972, Goebbels moved from
Landau to
Frankfurt/Main to study
sociology and complete a work on the German/Austrian composer Hanns Eisler. Meanwhile,
Alfred 23 Harth was finishing his degree as an art teacher at the university in Frankfurt/Main, as well as his conscientious objector's civilian service in 1973–4, and in 1975 returned after three months of activity playing with the
loft jazz scene in
New York City (with
Jay Clayton,
John Fischer and
Perry Robinson). Previously, he had formed the groups
Just Music (1967–72) and
E.M.T. (1972–74). He was then searching new musical companionship in the local Frankfurt music scene and joined a
jazz-rock band comprising Goebbels on keyboards and drummer Uwe Schmitt, later in
Gestalt et Jive, that shortly after broke apart while leaving some previously booked concerts open. Harth encouraged Goebbels to play one of the remaining concerts, freely improvising in a duo with him. They exchanged information, and during a rehearsal Harth played the melody of some Eisler songs on saxophone, which Goebbels accompanied on the piano. They continued improvising freely, thematically deconstructing Eisler's music just to have it emerge again in a twisted manner. They also extended the range of their instruments. A first Duo Goebbels/Harth concert took place in 1975 at a special event for artist friends in Frankfurt/Main. Goebbels and Harth played their fresh repertoire of music at the "1.Ersatzausstellung" by Vollrad Kutscher and Stephan Keller, from which photographs found their way to covers of the later LPs and CDs of the duo Goebbels/Harth. Christoph Anders, a later member of the wind band
Sogenanntes Linksradikales Blasorchester and
Cassiber, was in the audience and since then became a friend to the two musicians. The enthusiastic reaction of the audience to their humorous and skilled diversity led to more concerts for the newly formed duo Goebbels/Harth. Soon they contacted
Jost Gebers from
FMP, whom Harth knew from his LP production with E.M.T., and arranged a live recording session at the "Flöz" in 1976 in
West Berlin, which emerged as the LP
Vier Fäuste für Hanns Eisler, which boosted the duo's recognition. The same year, Goebbels started formal music studies at the
Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main. In 1978 the duo played at the
Deutsches Jazzfestival Frankfurt and started to work on a second LP,
Vom Sprengen des Gartens, for SAJ/FMP (1979), where they also worked in a manner removed from their European heritage by implementing ideas from German composers, such as
Bach and
Schumann, in their free improvisations.
Joachim-Ernst Berendt called this LP "one of the most important German
jazz LPs in the 1970s." Around 1978–79, Goebbels and Harth started to compose for the theatre as well as film music for German director
Helke Sander. In 1981, Berendt and the duo produced the LP
Zeit wird knapp by including love poems and ballads from
Bertolt Brecht, for which they recruited vocalists
Dagmar Krause and Ernst Stötzner. The duo then artistically shaped the German
new wave music/
Neue Deutsche Welle in their style with their LPs
Indianer Für Morgn and
Frankfurt/Peking by also using
synthesizer,
electronic devices, and extended instruments. They made a short adaption of the
Revolutionary opera Pekinese, which in 1996 led
Japanese avant-garde musician
Otomo Yoshihide to incorporate samples of it into a project with his group
Ground Zero. The duo then carried out two tours to
South America with the help of the
Goethe Institute. Around 1983–84, the creative spirit of the pair diminished. In 1987, Harth had been playing reeds and brass instruments in Goebbels’ performance
Der Mann im Fahrstuhl at the
Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in
Victoriaville, Quebec,
Canada (together with
Arto Lindsay and Heiner Müller). At the same festival, a final significant Goebbels/Harth event took place through a live recording, which became a kind of synopsis of the duo's entire repertoire over its long history. After a few more duo events and the unreleased last recordings “Duos für Fritz,” Harth disbanded the duo in 1988. In 1991 together with Akashi Masanori (evva), Harth produced the best-of CD
Goebbels Heart, for which he had asked artist and writer friend
Wolf Pehlke to put his image from the book of art works, "Goebbels Heart" (1986), on the CD cover to symbolize that the duo's work had been definitively concluded. In 2007 Harth and
Chris Cutler produced the CD reissue of the two first duo LPs. In 2020 the duo's Revolutionary opera
Pekinese together with Otomo Yoshihide's group Ground Zero was released on vinyl in France. ==Other activities==