Kurt Weill and His Critics

1198: TLS OCTOBER 10 1975

The precise point where Weill's are given in the play {)f Lady in''tlze and Brecht's paths diverged is nor Dark, while the unacceptable rund to be found on 1lhe maps of true answet·s at·e hidden, along with Br-echt's career which were made much else, far beneath the surface in the 1950s and early 1960s1, Kurt Weill and his critlcs-----2 of ·the music. The wish for anony· since Weill's path is never· even mity implicit in the character of marked-though sometimes a small the entire score, but fortunately and misplaced an-ow with the · By David Drew - not fulfilled in it, is best under· legend "to Broadway" points to­ stood in the cont-ext of the events war-ds the margin. The vagueness 1them on .rhe map with so me care if Wherea Knickerbocker· Holiday old intelligence meet the new which took place in E urope during was characteristic of a time when we ar·e to benefit from the old directly concemed poliitical issues demands in a somewihat d.isooncen­ the six months Weill devoted to the musical world was not inclined insights while avoiding the old of the day, and thus belied the ing way. It is almost as if Weill the work. While the play belong to question the natural assumptions ,errors. imp-lications of its -title, the dram-a had now---Lady in the Dark explored a Europe - decided that he had " phoney war ", the first sketches posers (apart from ·Hindemith) ,or·ig.inal objec.tive of my recent p seudo-psychoanalytical dre-am­ nothing to lose and perhaps some- for the music were made shortly who had worked with Brecht. The ault important. What Such wa the u·ap from which gaps and hence the fact . that cer· thwg new, and bad they !mown_ Lctdy in the ·Dark is no stranger to the discovery of Eisler has released what Adot·no calls the " Nachbat·· matters is the astonishing s ubcon­ us. Now 1Jhat Eisler is firmly estab­ ,tain important works or even ho~ , deep!~ sho~k~~ . c~r.tam o·f scious activity set in motion by whole groups of works were not WeJI~ s. ea!ltest . admu er s had been schafr des Wahnsinns ". Inileed it is lished in his own right, interest in discussed. by D1e Dre.rgr!JscheJ:t_oper_ and an almost clinically accurate analy­ those processes. A score fashioned Weill's career hefore and after the Mahagonny, they mtght have sis of the reaction-formations and with superb science from nothiJlg collaboration with Brecht has sig­ 'Dhe largest of these groups were ,paused long enough to recover the localized amnesias chat·ac-teristic but the s:ili.cates of contemporary nificantly increased, and is mani­ popular music becomes a weirdly at the beginning and at the end. use of dteir ears.. - nor only of the drama's heroine festing itself in the performance The earlier gap was inevhable, and the .consumer-society which she coloured distol'ting mirro-r- in which and enthusiastic reception of major since Weill's con temporaries had They were, however, justified in (and 1Jhe dramatist) admires, but the playwl'ight's indomitably banal works dating from both those l-ittle oppor-tunity of d-isc()vering remarking that tthe . G{)rnpo•ser of also of the ·comp{)ser's own- defen­ fantasies and the ly.ric-wri-ter's periods. A spontaneous and gradual rhe unpublished works of 1920-24, Die Dreigrqscheno.per was. now-here s·ive ttactics in that yea.r of decision. clever cocktail-party jokes take on development of this kind was some of which were much super·ior iden.l!ifiable in Lady in the Da,·k, the aspec-t of scenes from the fLove Life, Weill's and yet he saw fit to go on stage ,would---'he had never quite been sound ··hellish-which is to say, is only to be discovered by the Broadway works of the 1940s did and congratu·la.te the composer able to forget his inalienable links characteristic of a composer whose patient and attentive ear. af·te·r the premiere of Lady in the with the land where he had been at·t, like Mahler's, had, at a very ·not invite the kind of critical ar-ten­ Dark5. · A quarter of a century can be a "t.ion which even ll!he slightest of his born and where his forebears had eady stage, acquired from its Chris· painfully long time for friends works of the 1920s and 1930s had It is never more dangerous to J.ived since vhe fourteenth century, tian contexts a lively sense of the waiting in hope, but is a very short generally received; and even if underestimate Weill's intelligence he had now succeeded at last in ban­ purgatorial. one in the dispassionate view of they mel'i'ted such a-ttention, 11he than when it is applied to forms ishing from his music almost every Yet the ohange was profou~1d , history. It may be that we have intelligentsia were not inclined to that have enjoyed a long and inti· trace of his musical background and not just another of Weill's now reached a point where it is give it. True, their dismay at hi s mate association wi-th foolishness. .and upbringing. Hi•s farewell to his many changes of manner. As Her­ possible to recover the kind of first work for the Broadway stage, Un·like Knicker·bocker Holiday, ~1ative to.ngue was already corn· ben Fleischet· suggests (in Uber perspec-tive on Weill which was Knickerbocker Holiday (1938), had which still has many roots in ,posed. Dated December 22, 1939 it Kur.t Weill) , Weill's various Euro- lost after 1933 and &ttill missing

{ ancl .tempo, a nd so o n. It is the and the.ref•ore u nder its a uthority, ,ame n£. aftex rhe · ucce of Lar/1 in b ne-s t·ructur e which, b.}_' means of now the entire network of i1i1pulses ,the Dark , and (more especi a lly) !'1- fli ng a nd eXC ISIOil S, has illl d 'a uthority is driven back into after Ameri ca's e ntry in to the n-a.-. t One Touch of Venus was cppose d, te mme d from a fai lure to ten t secondary persona is unique in almost e n tire ly conven tional in c n id er whe the r the re mig ht be th e histo ry , of sig nificant composi­ fo r m, a nd ra n no risks apart ir m some connex ion be tw een the tion-as opposed to e pigonism­ t he o nes noted by M iss McCarthy. ch racter of the score and t he a nd r equires a corresponding a nd As a n en tertainme nt for audiences Freudian concept of repression ' diffic ult adjLJst ment on the pan of sor·ely in need of it, it sprang f ro m which-in a trivi a li ze·d form-was e ve ryo ne who is accustome d to rh e k ind of work Wei]] had b en ·hat the p l.ay prete nded to be evaluate a rt a rtist's .late wo r ks in do in g in factories and elsewhere as about. In fa ct, e ve rything· that the lig ht of hi s earli er ones. h is co n tribution to America's ar ·e p Lady in the Dark ali ve, a nd effo n , an d consequently is both rhe everycl1in"g that makes it one of the It wou ld h ave been too much to s lig htest a nd the .l east troubled of Jce-y ' works in W eill's output, (! xpect We ill's contemporat·ies in hi s Broad way wor·ks. Love L ife, w hi ch is per haps the most su bstan­ b elong to the areas of s u bcon­ American "serious m usrc " to E•ci ou- a ctivity d e marcated by the make that adjustment-th e most tial of those works, and cerra inly T pr ssion of hi s " European" im- that could be hoped for was the the mos t troubled, is u nmistaka bly ul e . The i m posed standards are ·kind of respect for residua l cra fts­ a product of th e immediate post­ 1i10 e which he idelltifie.s with the m.arnship exhibited by Elliott Carte r war e ra. _Part of the repres ed America he had now learnt to E u ropea n backg;rouJ.ld is now try­ in hi s note on One Touch of Venus in g to ,·e-e n)erge. l·ove- not witho ut dif-fic ul ty. yet (reprinted in {jber Kurt W eill, as ·with a boundless sense of grat­ i1Ude.- are a ll t he pieces referred to below). A full a nd j ust ap·prai sal of But Ca rter proved to be alm ost th e We ill's wo rk for Broadwa will Thus the clue to the famous Jast . notable musician to write become possible when hi earlier ..., r oblem " of Weill's tra nsforma­ about a new work of \Happy End at the Lyric in the Dark, the Broad way theatre words. wh ich a ppeared in. the N ew d uring the last ten years of hi s life · Theatre, London. critics became the ma in custodi ans Y ork Herald Tribune on April 9, bad been missed at the first and o.f Weill's reputation, and th ey of 1950- five days after W e ill 's E t o pportuni ty- the one moment wo rks; i n the next ma in phase, the wa ' di s t urbed a nd unnaturall y pro­ cou rse were q uite unprejudiced by death- may be found help·ful. T hey when it was cle-arly vis-i bl e a n:d religious is likewise censored by longed by the political and per­ any real awareness of Weill's mus,i­ fo ll ow an assessme n t o.f " the could have been found by a nyone the socia l elements with which - sonal upheavals of the time. ca l past. In that sense Weill was epoch-ma king works of . hi s German with a reasonably wide a nd for instance in the First Ne ve rthe less, there is a mple e vi­ JlOt mistaken in his belief th at ver­ period " , and support the opening 1horo ll gh knowledge of Weill's Symphony-it had once coexisted. dence tha t until the end of the dicts on his Broadway works were cla im that " he was probably rhe mu ica l a ims and achi.evements in The erotic may now return, but 1930s Weill felt himself to be on bette •· left to them than to most of most oJ"igi nal single workman in the past two d ecades. Each of the o nly briefly an d by rhe back door ; the threshold of a new period in t•he Amerioan mus ic critics. But the r-he whole musical theatre, interna­ · hases in his mature developmen t and it is again completely which h e wo uld be a ble to bring dram a c ritics were hardly equipped tionally considered, during rh last c,wes its distinctive character an d repressed (with strange effect) in togethe r a nd consolidate all that he to understand the inner wor·ki ngs quarter cen tu ry " : much of its dynamis m to the ruth· the male-dominated Bi.i.rgschaft a n.d had absorbed as a Europea n artist, of so unusual a musical mind, and \'Vhethe r Weill's A merican ' rks ] e suppression or repression of , Silbe•·see, as if in preparation for including what he had recently consequently their p raise was often wi ll carry as far as J-u s Ge rma n sLost in the Stars, for a ll characteristic of the previous Der \olfeg tiest of his scor,es for the them . Weill's finest work of orchestral spoken theatre in Germany. Lt is It is not inappropriate that our craft. His so-called "folk opera", also the one that fiqally makes thoughts should turn towards Weil.l Down in the Valley, is not with· ex:plicit that concern for a humane at the end o·f the Schoenberg cen­ out strength either. Easy to per­ and rational social order which had tenary year, for the polarity be­ form and dmmatically perfect, it been implicit in all ~ his major tween t hese two men of genius was speak6 an American musical dia­ works since the Sympho:ny of 1921. none the less real because one of lect that Americans can accept. Per haps it was the feeling that it them was artistically and intellec­ Its artfulness is so concealed that might be his farewell to the Ge r­ tually a giant and the other was the WlhOle comes off as n aturally man stage that impelled him to nO'il:. Of the musicians who were in as a song by Stephen Foster, give Der Silbersee something of a position to detect that polarity, though it lasts a good half the character of a Bekenntniswe1·k Adorno wa the first to· d raw atten­ hour. . . . Just at present the (and if it was, a compat·ab1e feel­ tion to it, and the only one to do American musical theatre is ris~ ing informed the last work he com­ so in vhe lifetime of either Weill ing in power. But its lighter pleted before his death i n or Schoenberg. Had Paul Bekker wing has lost in K-urt Weill a America ; for Lost in the Stars pre­ known Schoenberg's Moses und workman who ' mig•ht · have cisely complements Der Silbe1·see, Aron when he heard what wa left 'ibrid.ged for us ·the gap, as he did but this time on a level accessible of Der Weg der Verheissung, his in Germany, between grand to Broadway audiences). "In those . disappointment with Weill' opera and the Singspiel. The loss dayos Weill wrote the saore for De1· " Dance Round the Golden Calf " to music and to the t>heatre is Silbe1·see ", recalled Georg Kaiser would surely have been even more 1·eal. Both will .go on, and so will in 1941 ; "k was a f magn~fi cent intense; but his understanding of Weill's influence. But his output thing. And it is an immo1·tal thing, that curiously anodyne piece would of new · model&~and '·every new for art lives longer than all poli­ not have been enhanced unless he work was a new model a new tics?." · had also looked back to Maha­ shape, a new solution of drama­ ! gonny, and especially to the second tic probl~'ms-will not continue. Some account of Der Silbersee ami the e'Vents t>hat t~llowed its ac-t of that work where the calf is Music 'has' 'lost 'a cr·eative. mind eaten and where the or-chestra's and a master hand. ·first performance is !i-ssen-tial to e'Ven the briefest sur'Vey of Weill's dance arount:t the words " Geld The author of those words was - career, for without it the fir·st ha1f macht sinnlich" is modern music's the distinguished :eompooer . and lacks its tragic ending, and tbe first encounter wi ,. was resolvable through stanitial stu,;Ji~ .-. o~ ,• ceNain key· . fr~sh ., enough__ ,• ·if!· , .everY'one's ·weba,rn; but between Schoenberg works. The · Divertimento, the memory!l. ' · · and Weill no synthesis was or will Rec01·dare, the Rilkelieder, Royal What is interesting about such ever be possible. Linked by their Palace, Der Lindberghflug, Der Sil­ 'Views . of Wei1l's -tale;nt is that irreconcUable d-if.ferences no less . bersee-each fb1; ·a ' diff'erent 'reason they were widely ' sha.r'e'cl in than' by· th'eir secret affinities, they was denied due attention in Weill's other countries-especia.]]y England at·e the two hostile consciences of lifetime, with the result t hat other -les on a Brecht, Hamburg, 1959. poliri·cal events wlU:ch• drove its gothic building, and like them they 2 For instance, Eric Bentley, compo-ser f[·om his homeland, a~nd may perform both a practical and a Seven Plays by Bertolt Brecht, separated ltim from -the o.nly public m(lralistic function, Eor whi)e .help­ ;-New York, 1961, page xxx!iv. he thad e'Ver consciously set out to 'ing DO keep clt-e r'ainwater f~'I()ID the communicate with. It was not per­ walls, they PlllY also serve as a 3 See, . John Gutman, " In the formed again during his·· lifetime, reminder of how easily the liberal Theatre " . Modern Music, XVI: or indeed for many years .after his and humane objectives of, criticism 1, New York, 1938, page 55. death. can be subvertl!d' even "ii1 a "free""'· 4 Set• Samuel L . M. Badow, "In Some p,reJD,onition of what was society. : .In., ~hi;! present contex·t, the Theau·e ", Modern 1"\fusic, to· come is cleady feJt in the music these· rel!ics · f.r'om a past we would XVIII: 3,New Yot·k, 1941, p 1~2 . and in tlhe wo1·k as a whole. prefer to forg-et have the furtiher 5 Igor Stravinsky and Roberr function of revea-ling an almost Craft, Expositions and Develop­ fataJ defect in the critical support m ents, New York, 1962, p 93. *After forty years the contem­ Weill won from his contemporaries porary literat1,1re on , Der · ]asage1· in Germany : despite the many in­ 6 Vhl-gil Thomson, " Most Melo­ makes ·depressing · readiJng. Even · sights, and all the respect and dious Tears", Modern Music, the mo~t friendly critics of that affection that make them possj.ble, XI: 1, New York, 1933. much-