Kurt Weill - American Theatre Songs (Lotte Lenya)

Information

Composer: Kurt Weill; Paul Dessau; Hanns Eisler; John Kander

1. Weill - Knickerbocker Holiday: "September Song"
2. Weill - Knickerbocker Holiday: "It Never Was You"
3. Weill - Lady in the Dark: "Saga of Jenny"
4. Weill - One Touch of Venus: "Foolish Heart"
5. Weill - One Touch of Venus: "Speak Low"
6. Weill - The Firebrand of Florence: "Sing Me Not a Ballad"
7. Weill - Street Scene: "Lonely House"
8. Weill - Street Scene: "A Boy Like You"
9. Weill - Love Life: "Green Up Time"
10. Weill - Lost in the Stars: "Trouble Man"
11. Weill - Lost in the Stars: "Stay Well"
12. Weill - Lost in the Stars: "Lost In The Stars"
13. Weill - The Eternal Road: "Song of Ruth"
14. Weill - The Threepenny Opera: "The Solomon Song"
15. Dessau - Mother Courage: "Song"
16. Eisler - "Song of a German Mother"
17. Kander - Cabaret: "So What?"
18. Kander - Cabaret: "What Would You Do?"
19. Kander - Cabaret: "It Couldn't Please Me More (A Pineapple)"
20. Kander - Cabaret: "Married"
21. Weill - The Threepenny Opera: "Moritat vom Mackie Messer"
22. Weill - The Threepenny Opera: "Mack The Knife"
23. Weill - The Threepenny Opera: "Mack The Knife" (session takes)

Lotte Lenya

Orchestra & Chorus conducted by Maurice Levine

Harold Hastings & Orchestra

Louis Armstrong & his All-Stars

Date: 1957

Label: Sony

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Review

Late in her life Lotte Lenya wrote, ‘There is no American Weill, there is no German Weill. There’s only Weill.’ As they say in Germany, Yein: yes and no. One gets her point, but that’s to ignore the enormous pains Weill took to use the music theatre he found in the USA when he and Lenya settled there after 1935.

This recital of songs from Weill’s Broadway shows has never enjoyed the popularity or esteem of Lenya’s earlier German recital, already reissued in this Sony series, coupled with Die sieben Todsunden. There are only two of these American songs that Lenya had actually sung on stage (‘Sing me not a ballad’ from Firebrand of Florence and ‘Song of Ruth’ from The Eternal Road, never issued before now). Lenya was nearing 60 when this was recorded in 1957, and her voice was in remarkably good shape. The original LP was issued in mono only, but now the stereo tapes have been found and remastered and the presence of Lenya’s voice is greatly enhanced – listen to ‘Trouble man’ from Lost in the Stars, one of her very best records. And how she sings! The phrasing, the diction, even her control of a never particularly wide range, with that characteristic flutter that can be heard way back in her earliest records from 1929.

The fill-ups chart the last part of her career, songs by Dessau and Eisler to Brecht texts from the revue Brecht on Brecht (her only post-war appearance in London in 1962), songs from Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret, and three versions of ‘Mack the Knife’, two with Louis Armstrong and one with Turk Murphy. She doesn’t altogether ‘get’ the jazz style – she was essentially a classical singer, even though she employed some of the methods of cabaret diseuses. As Constant Lambert wrote, ‘Although her singing may not be to everyone’s taste, there is no doubt that in her own line Lotte Lenya is incomparable.

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Kurt Weill (March 2, 1900 – April 3, 1950) was a German-born American composer. He showed early musical talent and received formal training in Berlin, studying under teachers including Engelbert Humperdinck and Ferruccio Busoni. Weill rose to prominence in Germany through collaborations with playwrights like Georg Kaiser and especially Bertolt Brecht, with whom he created The Threepenny Opera (1928). However, as a Jewish composer, his career in Germany was cut short by the rise of the Nazi regime. Fleeing to the U.S. in 1935, Weill became a key figure on Broadway, collaborating with top American writers.

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Lotte Lenya (18 October 1898 – 27 November 1981) was an Austrian-born actress and singer closely associated with the works of her husband, composer Kurt Weill. Rising to prominence in interwar Germany, she starred in productions such as The Threepenny Opera and later reprised her role in its successful 1954 Off-Broadway revival. Emigrating to the United States during the Nazi era, she built a career spanning stage, recordings, and occasional film roles, including an Academy Award–nominated performance in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone. Lenya remained a leading interpreter of Weill's music until her death in 1981.

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