NEW PUBLICATIONS ARTICLES Porter, Andrew. "Road ofPromise. " The New Yorker, 19 October 1987, pp. 99-105. Rich, Alan. "The Many Moods of Kurt Weill." Keynote, September 1987, pp. 18-19. Rockwell, John. "The Enigma of Kurt Weill." New York Times, 13 September 1987, Arts and Leisure. Rothstein, Edward. "Kurt Weill's Deadly Sin." The New Republic, 23 November 1987, pp. 25-32. BOOKS Brand, Juliane; Hailey, Christopher; and Harris, Donald. The Berg-Schoenberg Correspondence: Se/,ected Letters. New York: Norton, 1987. A new album by Zebra, a DDR rock Cook, Susan. C. Opera for a New Republic: The Zeitopern of Krenek, Weill, and group Hindemith. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, [forthcoming December 1987) THE FAR SIDE By GARY LARSON Drew, David. Kurt Weill: A Handbook. London: Faber, 1987. Eisler, Hanns. Fragen Sie mehr iiber Brecht: Gespriiche mit Hans Bunge. Darmstadt: Luchterhand, 1986. Fuegi, John. Bertolt Brecht: Chaos, According to Plan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. Fuegi, John; Bahr, G.; Willett, J .; and Weber, C., eds. Brecht: Performance. The Brecht Yearbook, vol. 13, 1984. Detroit: Wayne State, 1987. Ganzl, Kurt. The British Musical Theatre. New York: Oxford, 1986. Green, Stanley. Broadway Shows: Show by Show. London: Faber, 1985. Morley, Sheridan. The Great Stage Stars: Distinguished Theatrical Careers of the Past and Present. New York: Facts On File, 1986. RECORDINGS Egy Fursca Lany. Kishonti Ildiko. Qualiton SLPM 16711. (Broadway songs, in In the early days, living in their squalid apartment, Hungarian. Includes "Tangoballade.") all three shared dreams of success. In the end, however, Bob the Spoon and Ernie the Fork wound Live Rock: mit Brecht/Weill Songs und Balladen. Zebra. Amiga 8 56 245. [Issued up In an old silverware drawer and only Mac went on to tame and fortune. by VEB Deutsche Schallplatten, Berlin DDR] The Far Side. Copyright 1987 Universal Musik zwischen den Kriegen: Eine Berliner Dokumentation. Thorofon/Capella Press Syndicate. Reprinted with permis­ DTHK 341. [Includes "Zu Potsdam unter den Eichen."] sion. All rights reserved. The final scene from the San Francisco City Summer Opera production of Rise and Fall of the City ofllfahagonny. David Parr, director; Judy Hubbard and Norman Wong, conductors. KURT WEILL NEWSLETTER PAGE 12 REVIEWS Kurt Weill Festiva l. should not surprise anyone now, yet a spirited, lightly jazzy piece that juxta­ which are reinforced whenever one of posed easygoing melodic material with Merk.in Concert Hall, New York, Weill's works is heard for the first time. the kind of sardonic accompaniment I New York, 17, 20, 26, 28, 30 Sep­ Beyond that, those who attended all of described above. The ''Elegy," by con­ tember 1987 the concerts could trace certain stylistic trast, boasts a melody through which a threads through the composer's early French musical accent peeks; and in the In the th.irty-sevf,:!n years since Kurt work. One of these musical fingerprints Finale, we get a stock marching figure, WeiU's death, there have been numerous that turned up in various guises was his transformed into something considera­ revivals and reassessments of his music, penchant for closely harmonized, accom­ bly more captivating by WeiJI's unusual complete with bursts of recording activi­ panimental figuration (usually in the approach to harmony and voicing. ty and new opera productions. Yet, the winds, where this trademark seems most Offsetting the exuberant Bastille full picture of this composer's varied out­ vivid and effective), often in either Music was a meditative group of Walt put only began to emerge over the last sharply jabbing dotted rhythms, or in Whitman settings, dating from 1942 and couple of decades, and it is still coming syncopation, and generally at brisk tem­ 1947. In these trenchant songs, Weill more clearly into focus, thanks to the pos. A related gesture involves synco­ conveys the swirl of wartime emotions as pioneering scholarship of musicologists pated bursts of wind chords harmonized eloquently in the picturesque piano part like David Drew and Kim Kowalke, aod with touches of dissonance, and voiced in as in the vocal lines. The changes of the efforts of a growing number of per­ a way that gives them an unmistakable mood in "Come up from the Fields, Fa­ formers who have become convinced that edge. Appropriately enough, these dis­ ther," for instance, respond to the text Weill deserves a place of honor in the tinctive effects burst forth most vividly with a sensitivity that is both eerie and pantheon of 20th-century composers. in the festival's opening and closing powerful, yet which actually create a During the last two weeks in Septem­ works - one of them, Bastille Music, a kind of suspense that one would not feel ber, the Hebrew Arts School presented a recent addition to the canon, and the when reading the text alone. A similar Kurt Weill Festival - apparently the othe1·, Kleine Dreigroschenmusik, a fa­ effect emerges in "Oh Captain, My Cap­ first organized cluster of events devoted miliar staple. tain," as the rumbling thirty-second to this composer in the United States - notes and dotted figures in the left hand at the school's intimate Merkin Concert of the piano part point up the contradic­ Hall. Actually, the series could have tions in Whitman's text: the ship is safe­ taken place at one of the city's lat·ger ly back in its home port, the crew victori­ venues, for not only were the concerts ous, and the people on the shore are jubi­ sold out, but upon arriving at the hall, lant; but the captain lies dead on the one encountered an unusual number of deck. The baritone William Parker, with people hoping to buy last-minute tickets. the pianist William Huckaby, brought The concerts focused largely on WeiU's these songs compellingly to life. lesser known works, including chamber The String Quartet, Op. 8 (1923) of­ pieces, chor al music, vocal settings and fered yet another side of Weill - the chamber orchestra scores (several of young composer reaching for (and occa­ these premieres), along with a touch of sionally grasping) a style of his own, the theater music. There was also a while reacting to the imposing influences day-Jong symposium on the connections of past composers. In the opening pages, between Weill (and his music} and the one had a fleeting sense of Haydn as a Jewish musical tradition. model, if only becau.se of the way Weill Adding to this festive mood, either by gave the first violin a soloistic line, set design or by coincidence, was the publi­ against a rhythmically unified and cation of David Drew's long-awaited clearly accompanimental grouping ofthe Kurt Weill: A Handbook - a volume other three strings. Structure quickly that served as a wonderfulJy informative evaporates though, and later in the companion to the concerts themselves. movement - long after the instruments Indeed, the peripherals seemed just The first concert, (17 September) have found a more democratic relation­ about as thoroughly attended to as the which featured the St. Luke's Chamber ship - there are faint echoes of Dvorak. performances. In Merkin's lobby one Orchestra, led by David Atherton, was Later, in the closing Choralphantasie could buy not only Drew's book, hot off far and away the most uplifting. The movement, there are glances back at the press, but several other volumes from six-movement Bastille Mu,sic suite, ar­ Bach, particularly in the cello line's solo• J the growing Weill-related library, and ranged by David Drew from the thirty­ istic snippets. In truth, this is not top­ n umerous LPs, cassettes, and CDs of his nine pages of music Weill supplied for a drawer Weill (or even top-drawer early } music. For those not in the market for 1927 production of Strindberg's Gusta.u Weill); but on one hearing I am not in­ any of these things, the program books lll, had its American premiere, and pro­ clined to be as harsh on it as Drew, who, proved suitable souvenirs, printed as vided a fine glimpse of the style that led, in his Handbook, calls it "an exception they were under a cover bearing a not long after, to tbe peak of his and an anomaly," and "the flimsiest youngish portrait of the composer, with a European theater style. Scored for vio­ score Weill had written since the Suite in page of his musical manuscript super­ lin, percussion, piano, accordion, trom­ E for orchestra" of 1918. imposed, and his signature at the bot­ bone, and pairs of piccolos, clarinets, Whatever one's impressions of the tom, and including notes by Drew plus horns. and trumpets, it spoke in very Quartet, the American Premiere of se­ complete texts and translations of the much the same accent that comes lections from Weill's incidental music for vocal works. through the scoring of Mahagonny and Marie Galante (1934), to which the sec­ The main thing the festival conveyed Die Dreigrosche11:oper. Yet, one could ond half of the first concert was devoted, was the breadth, variety, and freshness also glean something of the music's func­ was a real treat. Of particular interest of Weill's output, qualities that probably tion. The "Street Music," for'instance, is were t he vocal selections ("Les Filles de KURT WEILL NEWSLETTER PAGE 13 PERFORMANCES Bordeaux," "Le Roi D'Aquitaine," "Le Ronis, whose tenor was too light for the and Blythe Danner sang (and danced) a Train du Ciel,'' "Le Grand Lustucru," work (the score of which does call for a few solo songs and duets. Earl Wright­ and "J'attends un navire" - the last of baritone). son sang excerpts from Firebrand of which was heard twice more during the The choral program's real center of Florence and Loue Life.