Biography
Early Years
Kurt Weill was born on 2 March 1900 in Dessau, Germany. The son of a cantor, Weill displayed musical talent early on. By the time he was twelve, he was composing and mounting concerts and dramatic works in the hall above his family's quarters in the Gemeindehaus. During the First World War, the teenage Weill was conscripted as a substitute accompanist at the Dessau Court Theater. After studying theory and composition with Albert Bing, Kapellmeister of the Theater, Weill enrolled at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, but found the conservative training and the infrequent lessons with Engelbert Humperdinck too stifling. After a season as conductor of the newly formed municipal theater in Lüdenscheid, he returned to Berlin and was accepted into Ferruccio Busoni's master class in composition. He supported himself through a wide range of musical occupations, from playing organ in a synagogue to piano in a Bierkeller, by tutoring students (including Claudio Arrau and Maurice Abravanel) in music theory, and, later, by contributing music criticism to Der deutsche Rundfunk, the weekly program journal of the German radio.
Early Works & Operas
By 1925, a series of performances in Berlin and at international music festivals established Weill as one of the leading composers of his generation, along with Paul Hindemith and Ernst Krenek. Already at nineteen, he decided the musical theater would be his calling. In 1926, he made a sensational theatrical debut in Dresden with his first opera, Der Protagonist, a one-act work on a text by Georg Kaiser. Weill considered Der neue Orpheus (1925), a cantata for soprano, violin, and orchestra on a poem by Iwan Goll, to be a turning point in his career; it prefigured the stylistic multiplicity and provocative ambiguity typical of his compositional style. Modernist aesthetics are most apparent in the one-act surrealist opera Royal Palace (1926) on a libretto by Iwan Goll (exceptional in its incorporation of film and dance), and the opera buffa Der Zar lässt sich photographieren (1927) on a libretto by Georg Kaiser. By this time in his career, Weill's use of dance idioms associated with American dance music and his pursuit of collaborations with the finest contemporary playwrights had become essential strategies in his attempts to reform the musical stage.
Kurt Weill was born on 2 March 1900 in Dessau, Germany. The son of a cantor, Weill displayed musical talent early on. By the time he was twelve, he was composing and mounting concerts and dramatic works in the hall above his family's quarters in the Gemeindehaus. During the First World War, the teenage Weill was conscripted as a substitute accompanist at the Dessau Court Theater. After studying theory and composition with Albert Bing, Kapellmeister of the Theater, Weill enrolled at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, but found the conservative training and the infrequent lessons with Engelbert Humperdinck too stifling. After a season as conductor of the newly formed municipal theater in Lüdenscheid, he returned to Berlin and was accepted into Ferruccio Busoni's master class in composition. He supported himself through a wide range of musical occupations, from playing organ in a synagogue to piano in a Bierkeller, by tutoring students (including Claudio Arrau and Maurice Abravanel) in music theory, and, later, by contributing music criticism to Der deutsche Rundfunk, the weekly program journal of the German radio.
Early Works & Operas
By 1925, a series of performances in Berlin and at international music festivals established Weill as one of the leading composers of his generation, along with Paul Hindemith and Ernst Krenek. Already at nineteen, he decided the musical theater would be his calling. In 1926, he made a sensational theatrical debut in Dresden with his first opera, Der Protagonist, a one-act work on a text by Georg Kaiser. Weill considered Der neue Orpheus (1925), a cantata for soprano, violin, and orchestra on a poem by Iwan Goll, to be a turning point in his career; it prefigured the stylistic multiplicity and provocative ambiguity typical of his compositional style. Modernist aesthetics are most apparent in the one-act surrealist opera Royal Palace (1926) on a libretto by Iwan Goll (exceptional in its incorporation of film and dance), and the opera buffa Der Zar lässt sich photographieren (1927) on a libretto by Georg Kaiser. By this time in his career, Weill's use of dance idioms associated with American dance music and his pursuit of collaborations with the finest contemporary playwrights had become essential strategies in his attempts to reform the musical stage.
Collaborations with Brecht
A commission from the Baden-Baden Music Festival in 1927 led to the creation of Mahagonny (Ein Songspiel), Weill's first collaboration with Bertolt Brecht, whose Mann ist Mann and whose poetry collection, Die Hauspostille, had captured Weill's imagination and suggested a compatible literary and dramatic sensibility. The succès de scandale of Mahagonny encouraged Weill and Brecht to continue work on the full-length opera Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (premiered at Leipzig in March 1930). Exploiting their aggressive popular song-style, Weill and Brecht also wrote several works for singing actors in the commercial theater, including Die Dreigroschenoper and Happy End. They explored other alternatives to the opera establishment in the school-opera Der Jasager and the radio cantatas Das Berliner Requiem and Der Lindberghflug. Increasingly uncomfortable with Brecht's restriction of the role of music in his political theater, Weill then turned to another collaborator, the famous stage designer Caspar Neher, for the libretto of his three-act epic opera, Die Bürgschaft (1931), and again to Georg Kaiser for the daring play-with-music Der Silbersee (1932). In both he refined his musical language into what he called "a thoroughly responsible style," appropriate for the serious and timely topics he addressed.
These later works outraged the Nazis. Riots broke out at several performances and carefully orchestrated propaganda campaigns discouraged productions of his works. In March 1933, Weill fled Germany; he and Lotte Lenya divorced soon thereafter. In Paris, Weill completed his Second Symphony and renewed briefly his collaboration with Brecht for Die sieben Todsünden, a "ballet with singing" for George Balanchine's troupe "Les Ballets 1933." He also wrote a number of cabaret chansons, as well as the score for Jacques Deval's Marie galante. When a German-language premiere of his Der Kuhhandel (libretto by Robert Vambery) seemed hopeless, Weill arranged for a London production of this operetta, which had been adapted as a British musical comedy and retitled A Kingdom for a Cow. In September 1935, Weill went to America, with Lenya, to oversee Max Reinhardt's production of Franz Werfel's biblical epic Der Weg der Verheissung, for which Weill had written an extensive oratorio-like score. After many delays, the work was finally staged in 1937 but in truncated form as The Eternal Road.
A commission from the Baden-Baden Music Festival in 1927 led to the creation of Mahagonny (Ein Songspiel), Weill's first collaboration with Bertolt Brecht, whose Mann ist Mann and whose poetry collection, Die Hauspostille, had captured Weill's imagination and suggested a compatible literary and dramatic sensibility. The succès de scandale of Mahagonny encouraged Weill and Brecht to continue work on the full-length opera Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (premiered at Leipzig in March 1930). Exploiting their aggressive popular song-style, Weill and Brecht also wrote several works for singing actors in the commercial theater, including Die Dreigroschenoper and Happy End. They explored other alternatives to the opera establishment in the school-opera Der Jasager and the radio cantatas Das Berliner Requiem and Der Lindberghflug. Increasingly uncomfortable with Brecht's restriction of the role of music in his political theater, Weill then turned to another collaborator, the famous stage designer Caspar Neher, for the libretto of his three-act epic opera, Die Bürgschaft (1931), and again to Georg Kaiser for the daring play-with-music Der Silbersee (1932). In both he refined his musical language into what he called "a thoroughly responsible style," appropriate for the serious and timely topics he addressed.
These later works outraged the Nazis. Riots broke out at several performances and carefully orchestrated propaganda campaigns discouraged productions of his works. In March 1933, Weill fled Germany; he and Lotte Lenya divorced soon thereafter. In Paris, Weill completed his Second Symphony and renewed briefly his collaboration with Brecht for Die sieben Todsünden, a "ballet with singing" for George Balanchine's troupe "Les Ballets 1933." He also wrote a number of cabaret chansons, as well as the score for Jacques Deval's Marie galante. When a German-language premiere of his Der Kuhhandel (libretto by Robert Vambery) seemed hopeless, Weill arranged for a London production of this operetta, which had been adapted as a British musical comedy and retitled A Kingdom for a Cow. In September 1935, Weill went to America, with Lenya, to oversee Max Reinhardt's production of Franz Werfel's biblical epic Der Weg der Verheissung, for which Weill had written an extensive oratorio-like score. After many delays, the work was finally staged in 1937 but in truncated form as The Eternal Road.
Broadway and Hollywood
In the interim, the Group Theatre had recruited Weill to collaborate with distinguished playwright Paul Green on a musical play loosely based on Hasek's Good Soldier Schweik. Weill's innovative and extensive score for Johnny Johnson, though still recognizably European in accent, established the composer on the American scene. For a brief period in 1937, Weill had two works running simultaneously in New York. Encouraged by his reception and convinced that the commercial theater offered more possibilities than the traditional opera house, Weill and Lenya decided to stay in the United States, remarried, and applied for American citizenship. Weill followed the Group Theatre to Hollywood and completed two film scores, including Fritz Lang's You and Me (1938). But he found the motion picture industry hostile to the type of film-opera he envisioned and thereafter always considered Broadway "home."
During the next decade, he established himself as a new and original voice in the American musical theater. He continued to enlist leading dramatists for the cause of musical theater, including the foremost playwright of the day, Maxwell Anderson. Their first collaboration, Knickerbocker Holiday, was only a modest success, but it showcased Weill's first American "standard," "September Song." Weill's first hit was Lady in the Dark, a musical play about psychoanalysis by Moss Hart with lyrics by Ira Gershwin, his return to the theater after his brother's death in 1937. A daring experiment, with music restricted to only the dream sequences (a technique analogous to the use of color in The Wizard of Oz), Lady in the Dark broke Broadway records for production costs but recouped all of it in its 777 performances, with Gertrude Lawrence appearing as Liza both on Broadway and national tour. Weill quickly acquired the reputation of being the finest craftsman in the business, no less for his large-scale musical forms than his unique insistence on orchestrating all of his own works.
In the interim, the Group Theatre had recruited Weill to collaborate with distinguished playwright Paul Green on a musical play loosely based on Hasek's Good Soldier Schweik. Weill's innovative and extensive score for Johnny Johnson, though still recognizably European in accent, established the composer on the American scene. For a brief period in 1937, Weill had two works running simultaneously in New York. Encouraged by his reception and convinced that the commercial theater offered more possibilities than the traditional opera house, Weill and Lenya decided to stay in the United States, remarried, and applied for American citizenship. Weill followed the Group Theatre to Hollywood and completed two film scores, including Fritz Lang's You and Me (1938). But he found the motion picture industry hostile to the type of film-opera he envisioned and thereafter always considered Broadway "home."
During the next decade, he established himself as a new and original voice in the American musical theater. He continued to enlist leading dramatists for the cause of musical theater, including the foremost playwright of the day, Maxwell Anderson. Their first collaboration, Knickerbocker Holiday, was only a modest success, but it showcased Weill's first American "standard," "September Song." Weill's first hit was Lady in the Dark, a musical play about psychoanalysis by Moss Hart with lyrics by Ira Gershwin, his return to the theater after his brother's death in 1937. A daring experiment, with music restricted to only the dream sequences (a technique analogous to the use of color in The Wizard of Oz), Lady in the Dark broke Broadway records for production costs but recouped all of it in its 777 performances, with Gertrude Lawrence appearing as Liza both on Broadway and national tour. Weill quickly acquired the reputation of being the finest craftsman in the business, no less for his large-scale musical forms than his unique insistence on orchestrating all of his own works.
The even greater success of One Touch of Venus (1943, book by S.J. Perelman, lyrics by Ogden Nash) gave Weill the credibility to embark on a series of bold ventures. He was elected as the only composer-member of the distinguished Playwrights Producing Company, which brought Elmer Rice's Pulitzer-Prize winning drama Street Scene to Broadway as an American opera, the first real successor to Porgy and Bess. With lyrics by the Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes, Street Scene garnered more favorable reviews than had Porgy and enjoyed a longer Broadway run. Next teaming up with Alan Jay Lerner for an original musical entitled Love Life (1948), Weill used American musical idioms and a vaudeville frame to chronicle in non-linear form the impact of 150 years of "progress" on the marriage and family of Sam and Susan Cooper, who never age. Now considered the first "concept musical," its first genuine successor was Cabaret (1965), and even Stephen Sondheim found Love Life "very useful" for his own work. Weill's last Broadway piece was no less daring: the musical tragedy Lost in the Stars, adapted by Anderson from Alan Paton's novel Cry, the Beloved Country. Starring Todd Duncan and directed by Rouben Mamoulian, it challenged the Broadway institution and audience to a degree that would not be exceeded until the 1970s in the Sondheim-Prince collaborations.
During the forties, Weill had also contributed extensively to the American war effort, as well as a series of Jewish and Zionist pageants. Although all of the Hollywood adaptations of his musicals mutilated his scores, he enjoyed his work with Ira Gershwin on the original film musical Where Do We Go from Here? (1945). He was also very proud of his folk-opera Down in the Valley(1948), which received hundreds of productions in schools and communities throughout the nation. Weill was at work on a musical version of Mark Twain's Huck Finn and was planning another American opera (for baritone Lawrence Tibbett) when he suffered a heart attack shortly after his fiftieth birthday. He died on 3 April 1950. In his obituary Virgil Thomson identified Weill as "the most original single workman in the whole musical theater, internationally considered, during the last quarter century... Every work was a new model, a new shape, a new solution to dramatic problems."
His death came at the time that his German works were beginning to be rediscovered. Yet, the resulting dichotomy of the "two Weills" has thus remained for posterity to resolve. Although Weill claimed that he "didn't give a damn about writing for posterity," Maxwell Anderson prophesied in his eulogy that "it takes decades and scores of years and centuries to sift things out, but it's done in time -- and Kurt will emerge as one of the very few who wrote great music."
SOURCE: http://www.kwf.org/kurt-weill/biography
Want to know more about Weill's life and works? Visit the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music HERE.
During the forties, Weill had also contributed extensively to the American war effort, as well as a series of Jewish and Zionist pageants. Although all of the Hollywood adaptations of his musicals mutilated his scores, he enjoyed his work with Ira Gershwin on the original film musical Where Do We Go from Here? (1945). He was also very proud of his folk-opera Down in the Valley(1948), which received hundreds of productions in schools and communities throughout the nation. Weill was at work on a musical version of Mark Twain's Huck Finn and was planning another American opera (for baritone Lawrence Tibbett) when he suffered a heart attack shortly after his fiftieth birthday. He died on 3 April 1950. In his obituary Virgil Thomson identified Weill as "the most original single workman in the whole musical theater, internationally considered, during the last quarter century... Every work was a new model, a new shape, a new solution to dramatic problems."
His death came at the time that his German works were beginning to be rediscovered. Yet, the resulting dichotomy of the "two Weills" has thus remained for posterity to resolve. Although Weill claimed that he "didn't give a damn about writing for posterity," Maxwell Anderson prophesied in his eulogy that "it takes decades and scores of years and centuries to sift things out, but it's done in time -- and Kurt will emerge as one of the very few who wrote great music."
SOURCE: http://www.kwf.org/kurt-weill/biography
Want to know more about Weill's life and works? Visit the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music HERE.
For a chronological list of Weill's works click below:
Weill on America
Below are excerpts from a 1941 interview with Weill conducted by William H. Marshall, Assistant District Director of Immigration and Naturalization at Ellis Island. You can find the full interview HERE. Weill discusses his ideas surrounding the place of freedom in American democracy while also commenting on the theatrical culture of innovation that he would capitalize on in the creation of Street Scene six years later:
***
Marshall: How long have you been an American, Mr. Weill?
Weill: I decided to become a citizen the day on which I arrived here, six years ago. I remember very well the feeling I had as the ship moved down the harbor past the Statue of Liberty and the skyscrapers. All about us were exclaiming in amazement at the strange sights, but my wife and I had the sensation that we were coming home.
Marshall: And you had never been here before?
Weill: Never. I had lived and worked in Germany and later in France, but I never felt as much at home in my native land as I have from the first moment in the United States. I think it is this kinship of the spirit which brings America its new citizens from all lands. Those who come here seeking the freedom, justice, opportunity, and human dignity they miss in their own countries are already Americans before they come. As far as I am concerned, I know that I always was enormously attracted by America.
Marshall: How would you explain that?
Weill: You know, Berlin in the years after the First World War was in spirit the most American city in Europe. We liked everything we knew about this country. We read Jack London, Hemingway, Dreiser, Dos Passos, we admired Hollywood pictures, and American jazz had a great influence on our music. America was a very romantic country for us. One of my most successful operas, The Rise and Fall of the City Mahagonny, was about an American city. We even wrote two songs in English for this opera. Strangely enough, when I arrived in this country I found that our description of this country was quite accurate in many ways.
Weill: Yes, and in our theaters, our books, our music, our motion pictures. The greatest danger to the human race is indifference. People sleep and wake and eat and work and listen to the radio and go to sleep again and they are much too ready to forget what a precious thing it is to be able to live their own lives and they don't know what they would lose if their way of life would be destroyed. If we could show on the stage what it really means to be free and if we could show it in simple terms so that it can reach everybody, then we would really do our share to solve the problems this country is faced with.
***
Weill:...The greatest danger to the human race is indifference. People sleep and wake and eat and work and listen to the radio and go to sleep again and they are much too ready to forget what a precious thing it is to be able to live their own lives and they don't know what they would lose if their way of life would be destroyed. If we could show on the stage what it really means to be free and if we could show it in simple terms so that it can reach everybody, then we would really do our share to solve the problems this country is faced with.
Marshall: What form would you suggest to express these ideas on the stage?
Weill: Well, being a theater composer I would suggest the form of the musical play.
Marshall: Is that something new?
Weill: Not exactly. It is a form of theater which combines the elements of drama, musical comedy, ballet and opera. In collaboration with the German dramatists George [sic] Kaiser and Bert Brecht I had developed this form in the years between 1926 and 1933. Then suddenly all that we had done was wiped out by an iron hand. You can imagine what it meant to me when I arrived in this country and found a theater full of creative impulse, freedom, technical possibilities--everything I needed to continue where I had left off. Leading playwrights like Paul Green, later Maxwell Anderson and recently Moss Hart were interested and willing to try out new forms of the theater, great actors were looking for new opportunities and the audiences were completely open-minded. All this is only my own, rather unimportant personal story, but it proves that this country has developed a theatrical life of the highest standard. The same is true in other fields. America has become the cultural capital of the world.
Below are excerpts from a 1941 interview with Weill conducted by William H. Marshall, Assistant District Director of Immigration and Naturalization at Ellis Island. You can find the full interview HERE. Weill discusses his ideas surrounding the place of freedom in American democracy while also commenting on the theatrical culture of innovation that he would capitalize on in the creation of Street Scene six years later:
***
Marshall: How long have you been an American, Mr. Weill?
Weill: I decided to become a citizen the day on which I arrived here, six years ago. I remember very well the feeling I had as the ship moved down the harbor past the Statue of Liberty and the skyscrapers. All about us were exclaiming in amazement at the strange sights, but my wife and I had the sensation that we were coming home.
Marshall: And you had never been here before?
Weill: Never. I had lived and worked in Germany and later in France, but I never felt as much at home in my native land as I have from the first moment in the United States. I think it is this kinship of the spirit which brings America its new citizens from all lands. Those who come here seeking the freedom, justice, opportunity, and human dignity they miss in their own countries are already Americans before they come. As far as I am concerned, I know that I always was enormously attracted by America.
Marshall: How would you explain that?
Weill: You know, Berlin in the years after the First World War was in spirit the most American city in Europe. We liked everything we knew about this country. We read Jack London, Hemingway, Dreiser, Dos Passos, we admired Hollywood pictures, and American jazz had a great influence on our music. America was a very romantic country for us. One of my most successful operas, The Rise and Fall of the City Mahagonny, was about an American city. We even wrote two songs in English for this opera. Strangely enough, when I arrived in this country I found that our description of this country was quite accurate in many ways.
Weill: Yes, and in our theaters, our books, our music, our motion pictures. The greatest danger to the human race is indifference. People sleep and wake and eat and work and listen to the radio and go to sleep again and they are much too ready to forget what a precious thing it is to be able to live their own lives and they don't know what they would lose if their way of life would be destroyed. If we could show on the stage what it really means to be free and if we could show it in simple terms so that it can reach everybody, then we would really do our share to solve the problems this country is faced with.
***
Weill:...The greatest danger to the human race is indifference. People sleep and wake and eat and work and listen to the radio and go to sleep again and they are much too ready to forget what a precious thing it is to be able to live their own lives and they don't know what they would lose if their way of life would be destroyed. If we could show on the stage what it really means to be free and if we could show it in simple terms so that it can reach everybody, then we would really do our share to solve the problems this country is faced with.
Marshall: What form would you suggest to express these ideas on the stage?
Weill: Well, being a theater composer I would suggest the form of the musical play.
Marshall: Is that something new?
Weill: Not exactly. It is a form of theater which combines the elements of drama, musical comedy, ballet and opera. In collaboration with the German dramatists George [sic] Kaiser and Bert Brecht I had developed this form in the years between 1926 and 1933. Then suddenly all that we had done was wiped out by an iron hand. You can imagine what it meant to me when I arrived in this country and found a theater full of creative impulse, freedom, technical possibilities--everything I needed to continue where I had left off. Leading playwrights like Paul Green, later Maxwell Anderson and recently Moss Hart were interested and willing to try out new forms of the theater, great actors were looking for new opportunities and the audiences were completely open-minded. All this is only my own, rather unimportant personal story, but it proves that this country has developed a theatrical life of the highest standard. The same is true in other fields. America has become the cultural capital of the world.
Kurt Weill, The Man:
From a 1947 article on Street Scene in PM Magazine. Read more of the article HERE.
From a 1947 article on Street Scene in PM Magazine. Read more of the article HERE.
The man most responsible for Street Scene's transformation into an opera is gentle, stocky, granite-faced Kurt Weill, the composer who wrote the scores of Knickerbocker Holiday, Lady in the Dark, and One Touch of Venus since coming here from Germany, via Paris and London, in 1935. Though he often looks as foreboding as movie villain Peter Lorre, Weill is a small, gemuetlich man who enjoys most sitting around in sweater and slacks, talking to friends and drawing on a pipe like a contented Bavarian peasant. Since 1941 he has lived in New York City with his actress-wife Lotte Lenya, and an enormous English sheep dog, Woolly (pronounced Voolly by Weill), a gift from Moss Hart. Everything about the 5-foot-4 Weills, except Voolly, is small and sturdy; their doll-sized, stone house with hand-hewn planks and beams and a brick-floored kitchen looks as if it were growing out of the tiny hillside on which it was built 150 years ago.
Kurt Weill, In His Own Words
Stand up! Sit down! Stand up! Sit down! Stand up! Sit down!
Now we come to a new subject. You will recall that I read to you from Wagner’s texts. They were all about gods and heroes and notable topics like forest murmurs, magic fire, knights of the grail, etc. which seemed quite strange to you…You just weren’t interested in them. You would rather occupy yourselves with technology, airplanes, autos, radios, bridge building…
Write this down! The age of gods and heroes is past.
I also played for you the music of Wagner and his followers. You saw that it had so many notes that I couldn’t play them all. You tried to sing along with the melody, but it didn’t work. You sensed that this music was … intoxicating, affecting you like alcohol or other drugs. But you didn’t want to go to sleep, you wanted to hear music that you could understand without explanation, that you could readily absorb with tunes you could quickly learn…There are again today great issues that are of concern to everyone, and if music cannot be placed in the service of the general public then it has lost its reason for being.
Write this down! Music is no longer something for the few.
Modern musicians have taken this sentence to heart. Their music is simpler, clearer, and more transparent. They no longer wish it to embody a philosophy, depict external processes, or produce certain moods, but they still want it to fulfill its original purpose and have its original meaning. Look at it this way: When musicians had achieved everything in their greatest of dreams, then they began again from scratch.
Write this down! Kurt Weill is attempting to begin from scratch in the area of musical theatre.
(Read the whole thing below)
Now we come to a new subject. You will recall that I read to you from Wagner’s texts. They were all about gods and heroes and notable topics like forest murmurs, magic fire, knights of the grail, etc. which seemed quite strange to you…You just weren’t interested in them. You would rather occupy yourselves with technology, airplanes, autos, radios, bridge building…
Write this down! The age of gods and heroes is past.
I also played for you the music of Wagner and his followers. You saw that it had so many notes that I couldn’t play them all. You tried to sing along with the melody, but it didn’t work. You sensed that this music was … intoxicating, affecting you like alcohol or other drugs. But you didn’t want to go to sleep, you wanted to hear music that you could understand without explanation, that you could readily absorb with tunes you could quickly learn…There are again today great issues that are of concern to everyone, and if music cannot be placed in the service of the general public then it has lost its reason for being.
Write this down! Music is no longer something for the few.
Modern musicians have taken this sentence to heart. Their music is simpler, clearer, and more transparent. They no longer wish it to embody a philosophy, depict external processes, or produce certain moods, but they still want it to fulfill its original purpose and have its original meaning. Look at it this way: When musicians had achieved everything in their greatest of dreams, then they began again from scratch.
Write this down! Kurt Weill is attempting to begin from scratch in the area of musical theatre.
(Read the whole thing below)
simms_-_composers_on_modern_musical_culture.pdf | |
File Size: | 99 kb |
File Type: |
Check out this chapter from Ronald Sanders' biography of Kurt Weill: Days Grow Short: Life and Music of Kurt Weill.
Sanders provides a concise summary of the context (historical and personal) of Weill's engagement with Street Scene while also outlining the opera's development and initial production.
Sanders provides a concise summary of the context (historical and personal) of Weill's engagement with Street Scene while also outlining the opera's development and initial production.