Book Description
Volume 2 of this great 2-volume centennial tribute to one of the greatest composers of the 20th Century. From The Threepenny Opera to his Last Great Masterpiece Lost in the Stars. This volume contains 54 songs. Highlights include: Pirate Jenny * The Saga of Jenny * September Song * Sing Me Not a Ballad * Speak Low * What Good Would the Moon Be * cover graphics include original sheet music covers. Text contains bio of Weill and special introductory notes. ... Read more

Amazon.com
Different workplaces often kept Austrian singer Lotte Lenya and her husband, composer and conductor Kurt Weill apart, but the two shortened the distance through lively, often humorous correspondence. An unlikely couple, Weill came from an upper-class family and long line of German rabbis, while Lenya was the daughter of a washerwoman and an abusive cabby father. He studied with such masters as Ferruccio Busoni and Arnold Schoenberg; she worked as a child prostitute, dancer; and then singer, without any formal training. Despite their differences and numerous affairs they had profound affection and devotion for one another as this collection of letters, with annotations, explanations, and references by the editors, attests.Book Description
They were an unlikely couple. Kurt Weill was a German cantor's son, cerebral, well-educated. Lotte Lenya was two years older, an Austrian Catholic coachman's daughter, waif-like, less than beautiful but always appealing to men. She survived the abuse of an alcoholic father, escaping to Zurich and finally Berlin, working as a would-be dancer turned actress. When they met, she was a domestic worker in the home of the playwright he had come to recruit as a librettist. Much to his family's dismay, they married in 1926.
Fiercely independent and yet codependent, Weill and Lenya spent twenty-five years discovering a way to live together after realizing that they couldn't live apart. Weill gave music to her voice, Lenya gave voice to his music. Their correspondence--first in German and later, after their move to America, in highly flavored English--is uninhibited, intimate, and irreverent. It offers a backstage view of German music and theater, the American musical theater in the late thirties and forties, and Hollywood. The letters are candid, vivid commentaries on world events, the creative process, and the experience of exile.
Never before published, this collection reflects the vibrancy of Weimar culture in the Golden Twenties and the vitality that èmigrès brought to American culture. Lenya's unfinished autobiographical account of her life before Weill is also included, along with a prologue, epilogue, and connective commentary. Immensely touching as well as informative, Weill and Lenya's letters preserve a portrait of a memorable love that somehow survived its turbulent surroundings. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Superbly Interesting Correspondence. Read it!
`Speak Low (When You Speak Love) The Letters of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya' edited and translated by Lys Symonette and Kim H. Kowalke is the very first book of letters I have actually been able to read from cover to cover, and that includes attempts to read letters by some of my very favorite authors, such as H. L. Menchen, J. R. R. Tolkien, Ernest Hemingway, and Harold Ross (founder of `The New Yorker'), and all of these people, especially Menchen and Ross were no slouches when it came to writing correspondence.
Like Menchen and Ross, much of my interest in these two correspondents lies in their not being well known in the modern American pantheon of cultural heroes. I get a certain pleasure in `having them to myself', just as I felt some loss when Tolkien was elevated to that pantheon in the mid-1960's, when `The Hobbit' and `The Lord of the Rings' came out in mass market paperback.
Weill and Lenya was the model of a successful show business marriage, similar to that of singer Kitty Carlyle and playwright George S. Kaufmann, long before such pairings became staples of gossip columns and pop magazines and TV shows. To remind us of their background, Weill was the composer half of the team of Weill and Berthold Brecht who wrote three major hits for the Berlin musical stage in the late 1920's. The most famous became known to American audiences as `The Threepenny Opera'. Lenya, at this time, was a rising star actress and singer on the Berlin musical stage, and they were married on 26 January 1926, before Weill's first successes.
The book's subtitle does not make this clear, but all the letters in the book are between the two principals. There are no other correspondents. They run from 1924, when they first met, to about 15 months before Weill's death, dated 25 November 1948.
One may wonder how a correspondence between husband and wife could be so voluminous. Of course, their professions had a lot to do with it, since Lenya was often away from Berlin doing stage performances. Later, when the couple moved to the United States, the same condition held, as both were involved in different projects in different places.
What is surprising is that for all the parts Weill wrote for Lenya in Germany, he wrote no similar parts for her in his English musical plays such as `Lost in the Stars', `One Touch of Venus', and `Johnny Johnson'. I suspect the libretto writers such as Maxwell Anderson and S. J. Perelman had a far greater say in character development.
The editors have done a terrific job of assembling, annotating, and indexing all this material. The contents give a truly superb look at a major piece of the cultural history of both German and American musical stages in the first half of the 20th century. One envies their relationship and, like H. L. Menchen, who lost the love of his life, one is just a bit jealous of the fact that one can only live this relation vicariously.

Remember Letters?
Can you imagine a book subtitled: "The Email and SMS Exchanges of ____and ____?"
Remember letters? Actual pieces of paper held in and written by the hand of the sender? Remember the thrill of seeing the return address in the upper left hand corner, the familiar writing of a loved one on the front?
Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya wrote each other almost every day they were apart. They are a veritable clearinghouse of the first half of 20th century history, having lived in Berlin of the 20's, Weill in French exile in the 30's then New York after that. It is a fascinating account--their impressions of Broadway and Hollywood are insightful (Weill) and hilarious(Lenya). Buy it. And write a letter to someone you love. ... Read more

Book 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

Amazon.com
Born in 1900 into a German Jewish family, Kurt Weill gained fame as composer of The Threepenny Opera and other politically charged works written by Bertolt Brecht. He reinvented himself in America; by his death in 1950 he had written several popular Broadway shows ("Lady in the Dark") and one indisputably classic tune, "September Song." This solid biography capably covers Weill's life (including a tactful account of his unconventional marriage to Lotte Lenya), but concentrates on the music, refuting charges that Weill's American work betrayed 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

Book Description
The first lavishly illustrated document of Kurt Weill's extraordinary life and musical career ever published, marking the centenary of his birth

A musical iconoclast, the legendary Kurt Weill has become a figure central to the cultural life of the twentieth century, an artist known for his relentless mitigation of the tension between "high" and "low" art. He left behind a treasury of classical music and unforgettable songs like "Mack the Knife" and "Alabama Song" and, working with Bertolt Brecht and others, musicals like The Threepenny Opera to address the most serious of social and political issues. Now, David Farneth, Director of the Weill-Lenya Research Center and editor of the acclaimed Lenya: The Legend;has created an utterly unique and engaging document of Weill"s life and accomplishments through photos and the composer's own words.

In a lavish style suitable to its topic, Weill covers the composer's entire life, from his German-Jewish heritage and early political experiences, tohis legendary relationship with Lotte Lenya and his late-life experiments with the "concept musical." There is not an event--or a song--untouched. Farneth brings together text and photos from public and private archives in five different countries to assemble the most extraordinary of biographical documents. Weill is an essential addition to any music lover's 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

Book 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

Book Description
16 of his compositions arranged for easy piano: Alabama Song * Here I'll Stay * It Never Was You * The Little Gray House * Lonely House * Lost in the Stars * Mack the Knife * Moon-Faced, Starry-Eyed * My Ship * One Life to Live * The Saga of Jenny * September Song * Sing Me Not a Ballad * Speak Low * Surabaya Johnny * What Good Would the Moon Be? ... Read more

Book 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

Book 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

Book Description
10 songs, including: Alabama Song * Bilbao Song * Moritat * Seerauberjenny * and more. ... Read more

Book 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 Kurt Weill, whose life was as rich and complex as the music for which he is acclaimed. ... 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

Book Description
In this well-researched and balanced account, Ronald Taylor examines the emotional and intellectual forces that fueled Kurt Weill's unique contribution to twentieth-century music, tracing the shifting career of the enigmatic and underappreciated composer who was forced to trade Berlin for Broadway by the burgeoning Nazi terror of the 1930s. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Good intro to Kurt Weill
This is a satisfying biography that offers a well-targeted look into Weill's personal, professional, and creative development and also provides insight into his nimble adaptations to the changing social and historical contexts of his lifetime. More than anything else, Weill emerges as a man of eminent adaptability, whether in the narrow sense of reworking his music on the fly to the requirements of a theater production or in the broader sense of understanding his historical milieu and adapting his entire approach to music to acknowledge what audiences would embrace.

Weill's ability to reinvent himself is at the core of the ongoing debate about his stature as a composer. Unlike the David Bowie's, Madonna's, Britney Spears, etc., etc. of the current era, Weill's reinventions were not based on image with the substance of the music remaining essentially the same. From the avant neoclassicism of his early symphonic compositions to the heady inventiveness of Weimar Berlin's cabarets and theaters, where he first tasted success with Dreigroschenoper (Threepenny Opera) to Broadway, Weill transformed his musical sensibilities from one musical genre to another, while still carrying forward his signature sound. Some saw (and see) Weill's ability to bridge a range of musical expression as an exemplary eclecticism while others regard it as a betrayal of his early talents.

Taylor's subtitle, "composer in a divided world," significantly zeroes in on what may well be the most salient factor in Weill's lifework: his ability to adapt successfully in varying circumstances. And as Taylor points out, success far more than fortune was what Weill sought. By and large he achieved it in whatever form of musical expression he attempted, from neoclassical symphonies to musical theater. The magnitude of that accomplishment is not lost here, but neither are Weill's missteps as he moved in new directions.

Taylor quotes from critics, contemporaries, collaborators, and Weill himself to provide a wide-ranging perspective on the composer, his musical ideals, and his career. In addition, observations on Weill's compositions are illustrated with snippets from musical scores.

Much changed in the world during Kurt Weill's brief fifty years in it (1900-1950), and Taylor does an engaging job of situating Weill's work in its historical context, which is helpful to understanding the changes Weill put himself through over the course of his career. That said, there are more than a couple of places where the author slips into some fairly dense discussions of aesthetics and music theory that lead off the narrative track. A small price, though, for a worthwhile read that offers sympathetic justice to its subject and an engaging narrative about a man who was far from flamboyant in his personal life for all the flash of a career in musical theater.
... Read more

Book Description
Shrink-wrapped collation of Pf992l and PF9922 ... Read more