Product Description
First volume of a fabulous 2-volume set of the songs of one of the greatest composers of the 20th century.From The Threepenny Opera to his final great Broadway show Lost in the Stars.Volume 1 contains 63 songs including: Alabama Song * Bilbao Song * Green-up Time * Here I'll Stay * It Was Never You * Lost in the Stars * Mack the Knife * My Ship and dozens of great songs from his early days in Berlin through Broadway and Hollywood Triumphs. Cover graphics include color photos of original sheet music covers. Text includes bio and introductory notes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The best collection of Weill ever!
This Anthology is a due tribute to the great songwriter, German-born Kurt Weill. His compositions include hits like Mack the Knife, September Song and Alabama Song - all of them obviously included in the anthology (but you have to buy both volumes!). The two parts of the anthology have each and every song by Weill ever published separately (ie. not as a part of a full musical score). What's more, the sheet music is an exact reprint of the original, which ensures that no alterations have been done - they are faithful to the smallest degree. Most are piano+voice scores, but some also include guitar chords. Some songs are in German, some in French and some in English. "Mack the Knife" both in the original Dreigroschen Opera German version and in the English one.
The books are quite thick (might fall down from a sheet music stand), but well-bound and not very likely to break or fall apart. Some biographical/background info is also included in both volumes, as well as a few black-and-white photographs.
All in all, the anthology is a small treasure and you'd be hard-pressed to find all the individual songs in any bookshop or any other edition. So if you love Kurt Weill's music (and can read scores), you'll certainly love this collection. ... Read more

Product Description
A fabulous collection of this composer's songs, both from his German period and his later years in America. Features: Mack the Knife * September Song * My Ship * Speak Low * Lost in the Stars * many more. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

sheet music
I'm a Kurt Weill fanatic. I know all the songs in this collection and I own the music CD by the same title. Definitely buy the CD if you like Weill. I wanted to be able to play the songs on piano.I'm not thrilled with all of the arrangements in this book because with some of them, the piano music is written more as accompaniment, rather than as providing all the melody for the tunes.In that respect, it's frustrating. I find myself trying to adapt the sheet music while I play so that I can play the melody when it's missing.The vocal line is included, above the piano score, for people who want to sing.So, really, I'd give this a 3 and-a-half star rating for that reason.There's about 10 pages in the front providing some photos and interesting info on the songs and on Weill. ... Read more

Product Description
14 art songs dating from 1925 to 1944 as masterly performed by Teresa Stratas on the Nonesuch record. Includes: Berlin im Licht-Song * Buddy on the Nightshift * Es regnet * Je ne t'aime pas * Klops Lied * Nanna's Lied * Youkali (Tango Habanera) * and more. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Kurt Weill's songs are wonderful to sing-
I've always wanted to learn some cabaret songs! These have an operatic or art-song flair, which I enjoy. They each tell a story, based mostly on what had taken place during the 1930's, in Berlin during the war era.
My vocal coach reccomended it to me, as part of my repertoire, and I can't thank her enough. The songs are in mostly German and French, with one song , "Buddy on the Nightshift"- in English.
I reccomend this book, if you want a change from singing traditional opera arias, but still want to sing in a operatic manner-and want to sing something with the cabaret sound, something that can be jazzy too.

did not recieve
I never recieved the actual songbook that I ordered.I recieved the cd a few weeks ago, but I never recieved confirmation on the book. ... Read more

Product Description
His best-known song is "Mack the Knife," with words by Bertolt Brecht, from The Threepenny Opera, first performed in Weimar Berlin in 1928. Five years later, Kurt Weill fled the Nazis to come to America, where he soon emerged as one of the most admired composers of the Broadway musical stage. His shows included: Knickerbocker Holiday, Lady in the Dark, One Touch of Venus, Street Scene and Lost in the Stars. His songs: "My Ship," "September Song," "Speak Low" and "It Never Was You." This biography concentrates on Weill's career in the United States, but its aim is to explore the truth in the comment made by Weill's wife, the unforgettable Lotte Lenya: "There is no American Weill, there is no German Weill. There is no difference between them. There is only Weill." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Excellent Overview of Weill's Work for the Theatre
Kurt Weill's career has been hotly debated for more than 60 years.The questions began while he was still alive:Did he sell out his German artistry for the crass commercialism of Broadway?Or did he only really come into his own when he was freed from European snobbery?The answer is that both opinions are somewhat true and somewhat false.Rather than treat Weill's work as two separate careers, a European one and an American one as most commentators seem to do, Foster Hirsch treats Weill's career as a single entity.Hirsch's KURT WEILL ON STAGE is a superb chronological overview of Kurt Weill's work for the theatre, showing the logical evolution of his work.Weill became a world famous celebrity by age 30 as a result of his sensational THREEPENNY OPERA and MAHAGONNY.With the rise of Hitler and the Nazis, Weill wisely fled Germany, ending up in America after a period in Paris.But could he succeed in a new country and a new culture?Many distinguished European artist-refugees of that period simply could not adapt and faded into obscurity.Weill determined that he could succeed by writing in an American idiom.He made the transition quite smoothly, creating a string of popular Broadway shows that spawned hit songs like "September Song" and "Speak Low" before dying of a heart attack at age 50.At the time of his death he seems to have been just another Broadway composer, but with the passage of time, Weill's reputation has grown and he is now recognized as one of the 20th Century's great composers.In Hirsch's book, Weill's American shows are revealed to be a continuation of the innovative thrust of THREEPENNY OPERA.Just as he had worked with the prodigy Berthold Brecht in Germany, in America he collaborated with the nation's most prestigious writers, including the Pulitzer Prize winners Paul Green, Maxwell Anderson, Ira Gershwin, Moss Hart and Elmer Rice.Among his other collaborators were Ogden Nash and a pre-MY FAIR LADY Alan Jay Lerner.He worked with such noted directors as Max Reinhardt, Elia Kazan and Josh Logan and choreographers George Balanchine and Agnes DeMille.Mary Martin had her first starring role on Broadway in ONE TOUCH OF VENUS.Gertrude Lawrence made a huge hit in LADY IN THE DARK, which also catapulted Danny Kaye and Victor Mature to fame.And of course, there was Lotte Lenya, the German star whose unorthodox marriage to Weill is still confounding to most people.She had affairs with members of both sexes before, during and after the marriage to Weill; He made no secret of his affairs with other women.But they had an unbreakable bond that went beyond sex.Lenya devoted her life to promoting his work after he died and achieved her greatest fame late in life.

Hirsch keeps his opinions of the work fairly restricted, which I appreciated.The only Weill score he really seems to denigrate is LOST IN THE STARS.(I have to agree with him, though.)This is not really a biography of Weill.The biographical aspects of the book are very sketchy.They are there to provide a context for the work.I enjoyed this book enormously and listened to all my old Weill recordings (and bought some new ones) during the weeks I was reading it.There will probably be a revival of interest in Weill with the arrival of the new Broadway show LOVE MUSIK, which deals with the relationship of Weill and Lenya.KURT WEILL ON STAGE provides an excellent overview of Weill's life and work that I would recommend to anyone interested in the subject.

Inspiration for those who write for the musical stage
Kurt Weill On Stage, a scholarly study published in 2002 by Foster Hirsch, is an outstanding overview of the theatrical career of one of the most talented and ambitious composers writing for the stage in the 20th century.Hirsch has access to the excellent materials of the Weill-Lenya Research Center and the support of the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music; he supplements the vast array of correspondence and interviews available to him with interviews and accounts of the creation of the works from participants and spectators. He writes compellingly about Weill's gifts as musical dramatist and collaborator. The book is utterly inspiring to anyone (like me) who has ambitions to write for the musical stage.

A Biography that focuses on Weill's enitre career
Too often, scholarly work on Kurt Weill focuses mainly on his German career in the 1920s-- "The Threepenny Opera," "Mahagonny"-- but Weill had a career that extended well into the 1940s as a Broadway composer, and Hirsch's book explores both aspects, although it is clear he's a fan of Weill's later American work.

I would recommend this book as a suppliment to Ronald Sanders' biography "The Days Grow Short," the standard of Weill biographies. However, Hirsch has access to different primary sources that Sanders did not have in the 1970s, and therefore can provide a different perspective. There is also a great deal of text devoted to Lotte Lenya, Weill's wife.

It has been criticzed that Hirsch's book deemphasizes musical analysis, which is true, but that is not the purpose. Analyse the music yourself or find the writings of Kim Kowalke for musical analysis.

I found this book enjoyable and a good supplient to many other Weill biographies on the shelves ... Read more

Product Description
This book offers coverage of Weill's life that is informed by a knowledge of the shifting cultural and political climates in which he worked.Amazon.com Review
Born in 1900 into a German Jewish family, Kurt Weill gainedfame as composer of The Threepenny Opera and other politically chargedworks written by Bertolt Brecht. He reinvented himself in America; byhis death in 1950 he had written several popular Broadway shows ("Ladyin the Dark") and one indisputably classic tune, "September Song."This solid biography capably covers Weill's life (including a tactfulaccount of his unconventional marriage to Lotte Lenya), butconcentrates on the music, refuting charges that Weill's American workbetrayed his talent in search of commercial success. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

The Definitive Biography of a Musical Genius
Very often, scholarship on Kurt Weill tends to favor his German works such as "The Threepenny Opera" or "Mahagonny," however Sanders account spans the entire length of Weill's career. From his beginnings in Berlin with Busoni, to his German hits with Brecht, to his flight to America and "Johnny Johnson," to his Broadway successes with "Knickerbocker Holiday," "Lady in the Dark," and "One Touch of Venus." Sanders presents each era of Weill's life with the same objectivity. He calls for an approach to Weill that encompasses Weill's entire career.

If you are thinking of doing any research on Kurt Weill, THIS is the place to start.

Way beyond the Three Penny Opera
I just finished this book and was mightily impressed.My esteemed predecessor in these reviews has summarized the book very well, leaving me the opportunity to comment on a single important aspect of the book.When you mention Weill's name, people think of only one thing (if they know himat all).The Three Penny Opera.This book emphatically puts his '20something work with Brecht in perspective, showing that he continued togrow and develop throughout his career.The narrative is keen andpassionate.The details of the creative periods and production periods ofvarious works are gripping.My net response is: there is a lot more tothis man's creative output than just The Three Penny Opera and Mahagony(son of 3-penny?).He deserves to be heard; will he?

An old cliché: a must for all music lovers
Biographies (especially those of people from the entertainment industry) have become a fad since the early 80's, and most of them, however entertaining, don't add much to our knowledge of their subject and time.One admirable exception is this account about Kurt Weill and his lifetimeby Ronald Sanders. Since the very beginning, Mr. Sanders manages to give usa vivid portrait of how was Germany since the years before Weill was born,how was life like in those days for Jewish people there, and the greatcomposer's musical roots: his father was a Cantor, and many of hisancestors were professional or amateur musicians. To say only that Mr.Sanders' account is full of painstainkingly researched details would beunjust, for he goes far beyond that. He uses all these details to make usunderstand and feel in depth the makings of a remarkable career thatunfortunately didn't last so long (Weill died prematurely, at 50). Mr.Sanders not only treats us to an unforgettable tour of 20th Century'stroubled first half but also gives us a thorough knowledge of how musicevolved from the days of Ferrucio Busoni and Gustav Mahler to Kurt Weill'sworks in the U.S., with lots of information about other great artists likeArnold Schoenberg, Bertolt Brecht, Lotte Lenya, how Weill created suchmasterpieces as "Dreigroschenoper", "KnickerbockerHoliday", "Lady in the Dark", and so on. You can say thatthis is a cliché, but, if you are, like me, interested in anything relatedto the best music that was produced in the 20th Century, don't miss"The Days Grow Short". And if you are already a fan of KurtWeill's, this book will make you even more appreciative of him and hismusic. I recommend that you read this biography with your CD player on.You'll enjoy it even more when Mr. Sanders speaks of Weill's perennialcreations, like "Mack the Knife", "September Song","Speak Low", "Lost in the Stars", "MyShip"... ... Read more

Product Description
This is the first book on the best-known of the Weill-Brecht collaborations to explore the extent and significance of the composer's contribution. After a detailed reconstruction of the work's genesis and continued revision over three decades, Stephen Hinton examines the spin-offs on which Weill and Brecht participated: the instrumental suite, the film, the law suit, the novel, and the musical and textual revisions of songs. In a survey of the stage history, Hinton pays particular attention to pioneering productions in Germany and Great Britain. Kim Kowalke provides an exhaustive account of the history of The Threepenny Opera in America, Geoffrey Abbott addresses questions concerning authentic performance practice, and David Drew analyses large-scale motivic relationships in the music. Among the earliest writings on the work reprinted here, those by Theodor W. Adorno, Ernst Bloch and Walter Benjamin appear for the first time in English translation. The book contains numerous illustrations, a discography, and music examples. ... Read more

Product Description
Kurt Weill is one of the most celebrated of twentieth-century composers, but one whose more serious work is still little known. We know Weill for The Threepenny Opera, Mahagony, and The Seven Deadly Sins; for 'Mack the Knife' and 'September Song'; for his marriage to Lotte Lenya and his collaboration with Bertolt Brecht. This groundbreaking book, written by the foremost authority on Weill, provides the first definitive survey of his life and work. ... Read more

Product Description
This is the first book on the best-known of the Weill-Brecht collaborations to explore the extent and significance of the composer's contribution. After a detailed reconstruction of the work's genesis and continued revision over three decades, Stephen Hinton examines the spin-offs on which Weill and Brecht participated: the instrumental suite, the film, the law suit, the novel, and the musical and textual revisions of songs. In a survey of the stage history, Hinton pays particular attention to pioneering productions in Germany and Great Britain. Kim Kowalke provides an exhaustive account of the history of The Threepenny Opera in America, Geoffrey Abbott addresses questions concerning authentic performance practice, and David Drew analyses large-scale motivic relationships in the music. Among the earliest writings on the work reprinted here, those by Theodor W. Adorno, Ernst Bloch and Walter Benjamin appear for the first time in English translation. The book contains numerous illustrations, a discography, and music examples. ... Read more

Product Description
11 vocal selections from the musical featuring music by Ogen Nash and Kurt Weill. Includes: How Much I Love You * Speak Low * The Trouble with Women * Wooden Wedding * and more. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

If you like Peter Pan...
Play by S. J. Perelman and Ogden Nash starred Mary Martin as Venus, in the Broadway cast list in my copy of the book! Pages have deckle edges, nice. Endpapers have the song words and drawings in red, nice illustrations. Rare. Great deal, recommended. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Excellent Overview of Weill's Work for the Theatre
Kurt Weill's career has been hotly debated for more than 60 years.The questions began while he was still alive:Did he sell out his German artistry for the crass commercialism of Broadway?Or did he only really come into his own when he was freed from European snobbery?The answer is that both opinions are somewhat true and somewhat false.Rather than treat Weill's work as two separate careers, a European one and an American one as most commentators seem to do, Foster Hirsch treats Weill's career as a single entity.Hirsch's KURT WEILL ON STAGE is a superb chronological overview of Kurt Weill's work for the theatre, showing the logical evolution of his work.Weill became a world famous celebrity by age 30 as a result of his sensational THREEPENNY OPERA and MAHAGONNY.With the rise of Hitler and the Nazis, Weill wisely fled Germany, ending up in America after a period in Paris.But could he succeed in a new country and a new culture?Many distinguished European artist-refugees of that period simply could not adapt and faded into obscurity.Weill determined that he could succeed by writing in an American idiom.He made the transition quite smoothly, creating a string of popular Broadway shows that spawned hit songs like "September Song" and "Speak Low" before dying of a heart attack at age 50.At the time of his death he seems to have been just another Broadway composer, but with the passage of time, Weill's reputation has grown and he is now recognized as one of the 20th Century's great composers.In Hirsch's book, Weill's American shows are revealed to be a continuation of the innovative thrust of THREEPENNY OPERA.Just as he had worked with the prodigy Berthold Brecht in Germany, in America he collaborated with the nation's most prestigious writers, including the Pulitzer Prize winners Paul Green, Maxwell Anderson, Ira Gershwin, Moss Hart and Elmer Rice.Among his other collaborators were Ogden Nash and a pre-MY FAIR LADY Alan Jay Lerner.He worked with such noted directors as Max Reinhardt, Elia Kazan and Josh Logan and choreographers George Balanchine and Agnes DeMille.Mary Martin had her first starring role on Broadway in ONE TOUCH OF VENUS.Gertrude Lawrence made a huge hit in LADY IN THE DARK, which also catapulted Danny Kaye and Victor Mature to fame.And of course, there was Lotte Lenya, the German star whose unorthodox marriage to Weill is still confounding to most people.She had affairs with members of both sexes before, during and after the marriage to Weill; He made no secret of his affairs with other women.But they had an unbreakable bond that went beyond sex.Lenya devoted her life to promoting his work after he died and achieved her greatest fame late in life.

Hirsch keeps his opinions of the work fairly restricted, which I appreciated.The only Weill score he really seems to denigrate is LOST IN THE STARS.(I have to agree with him, though.)This is not really a biography of Weill.The biographical aspects of the book are very sketchy.They are there to provide a context for the work.I enjoyed this book enormously and listened to all my old Weill recordings (and bought some new ones) during the weeks I was reading it.There will probably be a revival of interest in Weill with the arrival of the new Broadway show LOVE MUSIK, which deals with the relationship of Weill and Lenya.KURT WEILL ON STAGE provides an excellent overview of Weill's life and work that I would recommend to anyone interested in the subject.

Inspiration for those who write for the musical stage
Kurt Weill On Stage, a scholarly study published in 2002 by Foster Hirsch, is an outstanding overview of the theatrical career of one of the most talented and ambitious composers writing for the stage in the 20th century.Hirsch has access to the excellent materials of the Weill-Lenya Research Center and the support of the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music; he supplements the vast array of correspondence and interviews available to him with interviews and accounts of the creation of the works from participants and spectators. He writes compellingly about Weill's gifts as musical dramatist and collaborator. The book is utterly inspiring to anyone (like me) who has ambitions to write for the musical stage.

A Biography that focuses on Weill's enitre career
Too often, scholarly work on Kurt Weill focuses mainly on his German career in the 1920s-- "The Threepenny Opera," "Mahagonny"-- but Weill had a career that extended well into the 1940s as a Broadway composer, and Hirsch's book explores both aspects, although it is clear he's a fan of Weill's later American work.

I would recommend this book as a suppliment to Ronald Sanders' biography "The Days Grow Short," the standard of Weill biographies. However, Hirsch has access to different primary sources that Sanders did not have in the 1970s, and therefore can provide a different perspective. There is also a great deal of text devoted to Lotte Lenya, Weill's wife.

It has been criticzed that Hirsch's book deemphasizes musical analysis, which is true, but that is not the purpose. Analyse the music yourself or find the writings of Kim Kowalke for musical analysis.

I found this book enjoyable and a good supplient to many other Weill biographies on the shelves ... Read more

Product Description
This engaging and lavishly illustrated book draws on a wealth of previously unexplored written and pictorial material to present an up-to-date and balanced biography of 20th-century composer Kurt Weill, whose life was as rich and complex as the music for which he is acclaimed. 288 illustrations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

yes, but . . .
Illustrated, yes. A life, well, seems like there's more to be told. Give this book's publisher 1 star, its author 2, and its translator 5. A smooth and seamless read, if notan altogether satisfying one.

Schebera does convey a sympathetic impression of Weill, and the illustrations offer a welcome insight into the historical context of Weill's music and how he was marketed. The difficulty is, none of the illustrated material is in color, a cost-saving move by the publisher that undercuts the value of the illustrations. Another shortcoming is that none of the discusion of Weill's music is accompanied by the music on the page.

Basically, this biography comes down to an itinerary of Weill's life with little said about what motivated and inspired the composer or how his creativity was stimulated and expressed. Remember, this was a man who was exiled from his native Germany in 1936, following the rise of Hitler's National Socialist Workers' Party, both because he was a Jew and also because he was regarded as a debaucher of German culture through his efforts to modernized classical music and opera.
Schebera is much better at placing Weill in a history-of-music context than at showing us what made the man tick. He unfortunately portrays a man whose life must have brimmed with emotional reactions to events occurring around him, from the creative explosion of the Weimar Republic to WWII to the Holocaust with a matter-of-fact detachment and, sorry to say, shallowness. Where this lack of emotional insight shows most notably is in Weill's personal relations. For example, he was married to Lotte Lenya twice, yet Schebera offers only a perfunctory and temporal explanation for their divorce and later casually glides over the motivations for their remarriage. His one telling quotation, Weill's remark from their first marriage, "Lenya, you know you come right after my music!" never gets the interpersonal embellishments one assumes is available in the voluminous correspondence between Weill and Lenya.

Weill also had an on-and-off creative relationship with Bertold Brecht whose ruptures Schebera summarizes under "creative differences" without elaborating. These artists, collectively with "Threepenny Opera" and individually or through other collaborations, are two of the most prominent and influential innovators in contemporary musical theater, yet Schebera treats their relationship and break-ups like a change of address or a scheduled vacation.

Behind this lack of detail, there seems to be an unstated assumption that the reader knows as much about the period and about the history of music as the author.

Not a book without merits, but certainly a book that leaves one hungry for more.
... Read more

Product Description
In this prizewinning book, leading musical, theatrical, and literary scholars examine different aspects of the life and work of Kurt Weill, one of the most controversial composers of the twentieth century. Making use of documentary material now available for the first time, the contributors present startling revelations not only about Weill's career but also about his many collaborators---among them Brecht, Kasier, Reinhardt, Werfel, Ira Gershwin, Klemperer, Moss Hart, and Elisabeth Hauptmann. ... Read more

Product Description
Beautifully designed and lavishly illustrated, a large-format biography of one of the 20th century's most innovative composersThe legendary iconoclast Kurt Weill has become figure central to the cultural life of the twentieth century.An artist known for his relentless exploration of the boundary between "high" and "low" art, Weill left behind a treasury of classical music and unforgettable songs such as "Mack the Knife" and "Alabama Song." Working with Bertolt Brecht and others, he used musicals such as The Threepenny Opera to address the most serious of social and political issues.In a lavish style suitable the subject, Kurt Weill explores the author's life with more than 900 photographs, many infull-color, from archives in five different countries, and in-depth scholarship by Weil expert David Farneth, to form this essential addition to any theater or music lover's collection. ... Read more