Kurt+Weill

General Information
He was born in Dessau, Germany in March 1900. Weill suffered a heart attack shortly after his 50th birthday and died on April 3, 1950 in New York City. He was a German Jew.

Life
Kurt Weill was the third of four children and grew up in a religious Jewish family in the Jewish section of Dessau. When he was 12, he began taking piano lessons and attempted to compose. His earliest composition was written in 1913 and was called //Mi Addir. Jewish Wedding Song.// In 1915, he began taking lessons with Albert Bing. At 18, he went to Berlin, to experience the culture first hand. family experienced financial hardship in the aftermath of World War I, and in July 1919, Weill abandoned his studies and returned to Dessau, where he was employed as a répétiteur at the Friedrich-Theate. 1920 he began an intensive association with Ferruccio Busoni in the composition seminar at the Akademie der Künste. n 1922 he joined the ‘Novembergruppe’, a group of leftist Berlin artists that included Hanns Eisler and Stefan Wolpe.

By 1923, he has 5 works performed in Germany. He met the actress Lotte Lenya in Berlin in 1924, and they married in January 1926. They were divorced from 1933-1937, but they remarried and stayed together until his death. Due to his fragile financial situation, he taught students from 1923 to 1925. From November 1924 to May 1929, Weill wrote reviews for the comprehensive radio program guide Der deutsche Rundfunk. Hans Siebert von Heister had already worked with Weill and offered him the job shortly after becoming editor-in-chief.

His best known work is ' The Threepenny Opera'. He fled Nazi Germany in 1933, because he was Jewish and a well known socialist. He was targeted by the authorities and they criticized and interfered with his performances. He went to Paris until 1935, where he moved to New York. He believed that most of his work had been destroyed, and rarely spoke German again, except in letters to his parents in Palestine. Unlike most Broadway composers, he insisted on writing his own pieces. In the 1940s Weill lived in Downstate New York near the New Jersey border and made frequent trips both to New York City and to Hollywood for his work for theatre and film. Weill was active in political movements encouraging American entry into World War II, and after America joined the war in 1941, he worked alongside projects supporting the war effort both abroad and on the home front. He and Maxwell Anderson also joined the volunteer civil service by working as air raid wardens between their homes in New York and Rockland County. Weill became a citizen of the United States in 1943

Quotes
//I have never acknowledged the difference between serious music and light music. There is only good music and bad music.//

Maxwell Anderson's eulogy for Weill read: //"I wish, of course, that he had been lucky enough to have had a little more time for his work. I could wish the times in which he lived had been less troubled. But these things were as they were – and Kurt managed to make thousands of beautiful things during the short and troubled time he had…"//

__Cantatas__
1920 : Sulamith, choral fantasy for soprano, female chorus and orchestra (lost)

1927 : Der neue Orpheus, cantata for soprano, solo violin and orchestra, op.16 (text: Yvan Goll)

1927 : Der Tod im Wald, cantata for bass and band (originally belonged to Das Berliner Requiem)

1928 : Das Berliner Requiem, cantata for tenor, baritone, male chorus (or three male voices) and wind orchestra (text: Bertolt Brecht)

1929 : Der Lindberghflug, cantata for tenor, baritone and bass soloists, chorus and orchestra (text: Bertolt Brecht, first version with music by Paul Hindemith and Weill, second version, also 1929, with music exclusively by Weill)

1940 : The Ballad of Magna Carta, cantata for tenor and bass soloists, chorus and orchestra (text: Maxwell Anderson)

__Chamber music__
1918 : String Quartet in B minor (without opus number)

1923 : String Quartet op. 8

1919–1921 : Sonata for Cello and Piano

__Piano music__

1917 : Intermezzo

1937 : Albumblatt for Erika (transcription of the pastorale from Der Weg der Verheissung)

__Orchestral works__
1919 : Suite for orchestra

1919 : Die Weise von Liebe and Tod, symphonic poem for orchestra after Rainer Maria Rilke (lost)

1921 : Symphony No.1 in one movement for orchestra

1922 : Divertimento for orchestra, op.5 (unfinished, reconstructed by David Drew)

1922 : Sinfonia Sacra, Fantasia, Passacaglia and Hymnus for orchestra, op. 6 (unfinished)

1923 : Quodlibet, suite for orchestra from the pantomime Zaubernacht, op. 9

1925 : Concerto for violin and wind orchestra, op. 12

1927 : Bastille Musik, suite for wind orchestra (arranged by David Drew, 1975) from the stage music to Gustav III, by August Strindberg

1929 : Kleine Dreigroschenmusik, suite from Die Dreigroschenoper for wind orchestra, piano and percussion, (premiere conducted by Otto Klemperer)

1934 : Suite panaméenne for chamber orchestra, (from Marie Galante)

1934 : Symphony No. 2 in three movements for orchestra, (premiere by Royal Concertgebouw orchestra under Bruno Walter)

1947 : Hatikvah, arrangement of the Israeli National Anthem for orchestra

__Lieder, Lieder cycles, songs and chansons__
1919 : Die stille Stadt, for voice and piano, text: Richard Dehmel

1923 : Frauentanz op.10, Lieder cycle for soprano, flute, viola, clarinet, horn and bassoon (after medieval poems)

1923 : Stundenbuch, Lieder cycle for baritone and orchestra, text: Rainer Maria Rilke

1925 : Klopslied, for high voice, two piccolos and bassoon ('Ick sitze da un' esse Klops'/Berliner Lied)

1927 : Vom Tod im Wald (Death in the Forest), Op. 23, ballad for bass solo and ten wind instruments, text: Bertolt Brecht

1928 : Berlin im Licht-Song, slow-fox, text: Kurt Weill; composed for the exhibition Berlin im Licht, first performance in Wittenbergplatz (with orchestra) on October 13, and on October 16 in the Kroll Opera (with voice and piano)

1928 : Die Muschel von Margate: Petroleum Song, slow-fox, text: Felix Gasbarra for the play by Leo Lania, Konjunktur

1928 : Zu Potsdam unter den Eichen (In Potsdam under the Oak Trees), song for voice and piano, alternatively male chorus a cappella, text: Bertolt Brecht

1928 : Das Lied von den braunen Inseln, text: Lion Feuchtwanger, from the play by same author, Petroleum Inseln

1933 : Der Abschiedsbrief, text: Erich Kästner, intended for Marlene Dietrich

1933 : La complainte de Fantômas, text: Robert Desnos; for a broadcast of Fantômas in November 1933 (the music was lost, and later reconstructed by Jacques Loussier for Catherine Sauvage)

1933 : Es regnet, text: Jean Cocteau (direct into German)

1934 : Je ne t'aime pas, text: Maurice Magre for the soprano Lys Gauty

1934 : J'attends un navire, text: Jacques Deval, from Marie Galante ; as an independent song for Lys Gauty; used for the Hymne der Resistance during the Second World War

1934 : Youkali (originally the Tango habanera, instrumental movement in Marie Galante), Text: Roger Fernay

1934 : Complainte de la Seine, text: Maurice Magre

1939 : Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, song for voice and piano, text: Robert Frost (unfinished)

1942 : Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory, patriotic song arrangements for narrator, male chorus, and orchestra, of the Battle Hymn of the Republic (text: Julia Ward Howe), The Star-Spangled Banner (text: Francis Scott Key), America (text: Samuel Francis Smith) and Beat! Beat! Drums! (text: Walt Whitman)

1942–44 : Propaganda Songs, for voice and piano; written for the Lunch Hours Follies performed for the workers of a shipbuilding workshop in New York, then broadcast:

1942 : Buddy on the Nightshift, text: Oscar Hammerstein

1942 : Schickelgruber, text: Howard Dietz

1942 : Und was bekam des Soldaten Weib? (And what was sent to the soldier's wife?), ballad for voice and piano, text: Bertolt Brecht

1942–47 : Three Walt Whitman Songs, later Four Walt Whitman Songs for voice and piano (or orchestra), text: Walt Whitman

1944 : Wie lange noch?, text: Walter Mehring; premiere: Lotte Lenya

media type="youtube" key="nROA4mXYt_o" height="315" width="420"