99-476: Kurt Julian Weill (March 2, 1900 – April 3, 1950) was a German-born American composer active from the 1920s in his native country, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht . With Brecht, he developed productions such as his best-known work, The Threepenny Opera , which included
198-502: A cycle of five songs to poems by Nikolaus Lenau . In December 1919, through the help of Humperdinck, Weill was appointed as Kapellmeister at the newly founded Stadttheater in Lüdenscheid , where he directed opera, operetta, and singspiel for five months. He subsequently composed a cello sonata and Ninon de Lenclos , a now lost one-act operatic adaptation of a 1905 play by Ernst Hardt . From May to September 1920, Weill spent
297-667: A German translation of a text by Yehuda Halevi . Weill graduated with an Abitur from the Oberrealschule of Dessau in 1918, and enrolled at the Berliner Hochschule für Musik at the age of 18, where he studied composition with Engelbert Humperdinck , conducting with Rudolf Krasselt , and counterpoint with Friedrich E. Koch , and also attended philosophy lectures by Max Dessoir and Ernst Cassirer . The same year, he wrote his first string quartet (in B minor). Weill's family experienced financial hardship in
396-454: A beer-hall. He did short sketches in which he played refractory employees, orchestral musicians or photographers, who hated their employers and made them look ridiculous. The employer was played by his partner, Liesl Karlstadt, a popular woman comedian who used to pad herself out and speak in a deep bass voice. Brecht's first full-length play, Baal (written 1918), arose in response to an argument in one of Kutscher's drama seminars, initiating
495-454: A child known as Eugen) was born on 10 February 1898 in Augsburg , Germany, the son of Berthold Friedrich Brecht (1869–1939) and his wife Sophie, née Brezing (1871–1920). Brecht's mother was a devout Protestant and his father a Roman Catholic (who had been persuaded to have a Protestant wedding). The modest house where he was born is today preserved as a Brecht Museum. His father worked for
594-768: A composer and arranger who collaborated with Max Reger and who dedicated Aquarelles , Op. 25, to him. Caesar's younger brother was Gustav Hochstetter [ de ] (born May 12, 1873, Mannheim – died 1942, Theresienstadt concentration camp ), Professor of Literature at the University of Brussels, writer and poet and friend of Wilhelm Busch . His second cousin was the childhood prodigy pianist, Lisy Fischer (born August 22, 1900, Zürich, Switzerland – died June 6, 1999, Newcastle upon Tyne , England). Notes References Sources Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known as Bertolt Brecht and Bert Brecht ,
693-742: A few months in Leipzig , where his father had become the director of a Jewish orphanage, residing in the Gottschedstrasse . Before he returned to Berlin, in September 1920, he composed Sulamith , a choral fantasy for soprano, female choir, and orchestra. Back in Berlin, Weill had an interview with Ferruccio Busoni in December 1920. After examining some of Weill's compositions, Busoni accepted him as one of five master students in composition at
792-424: A film score for Fritz Lang ( You and Me , 1938). Weill himself strove to find a new way of creating an American opera that would be both commercially and artistically successful. The most interesting attempt in this direction is Street Scene , based on a play by Elmer Rice , with lyrics by Langston Hughes . For his work on Street Scene Weill was awarded the inaugural Tony Award for Best Original Score . In
891-626: A leading theoretician of epic theatre (which he later preferred to call "dialectical theatre") and the Verfremdungseffekt . When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, Brecht fled his home country, initially to Scandinavia. During World War II he moved to Southern California where he established himself as a screenwriter, and meanwhile was being surveilled by the FBI . In 1947, he
990-587: A left-wing direction, Weill commented, according to his wife Lotte Lenya, that he was unable to "set the Communist Manifesto to music." While in Germany in the early 1930s, Weill also collaborated with the American virtuoso banjoist Mike Danzi in an early production of his opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny . During a rehearsal, Weill congratulated Danzi for his accurate interpretation of
1089-462: A milestone in Brecht's early theatrical and dramaturgical development. Brecht's Edward II constituted his first attempt at collaborative writing and was the first of many classic texts he was to adapt. As his first solo directorial début, he later credited it as the germ of his conception of " epic theatre ". That September, a job as assistant dramaturg at Max Reinhardt 's Deutsches Theater —at
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#17327803458121188-519: A military VD clinic ; the war ended a month later. In July 1919, Brecht and Paula Banholzer (who had begun a relationship in 1917) had a son, Frank. In 1920 Brecht's mother died. Frank died in 1943, fighting for Nazi Germany on the Eastern Front . Some time in either 1920 or 1921, Brecht took a small part in the political cabaret of the Munich comedian Karl Valentin . Brecht's diaries for
1287-506: A music festival in July, as what Weill called a "stylistic exercise" in preparation for the large-scale piece. From that point on Caspar Neher became an integral part of the collaborative effort, with words, music and visuals conceived in relation to one another from the start. The model for their mutual articulation lay in Brecht's newly formulated principle of the " separation of the elements ", which he first outlined in " The Modern Theatre Is
1386-749: A number of agitprop plays, praising the bolshevik collectivism (replaceability of each member of the collective in Man Equals Man ) and the Red Terror ( The Decision ). For us, man portrayed on the stage is significant as a social function. It is not his relationship to himself, nor his relationship to God, but his relationship to society which is central. Whenever he appears, his class or social stratum appears with him. His moral, spiritual or sexual conflicts are conflicts with society. Erwin Piscator , 1929. In 1927 Brecht became part of
1485-471: A paper mill, becoming its managing director in 1914. At Augsburg, his maternal grandparents lived in the neighbouring house. They were Pietists and his grandmother influenced Bertolt Brecht and his brother Walter considerably during their childhood. Due to his grandmother's and his mother's influence, Brecht knew the Bible, a familiarity that would have a life-long effect on his writing. From his mother came
1584-642: A performance of his Divertimento for Orchestra by the Berlin Philharmonic under the direction of Heinz Unger on April 10, 1923, and the Hindemith-Amar Quartet 's rendering of Weill's String Quartet , Op. 8, on June 24, 1923. In December 1923, Weill finished his studies with Busoni. In 1922 he joined the Novembergruppe , a group of leftist Berlin artists that included Hanns Eisler and Stefan Wolpe . In February 1924
1683-578: A play that would never see the stage in Brecht's lifetime. Happy End' s score by Weill produced many Brecht/Weill hits like "Der Bilbao-Song" and "Surabaya-Jonny". The masterpiece of the Brecht/Weill collaborations, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny ( Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny ), caused an uproar when it premiered in 1930 in Leipzig, with Nazis in the audience protesting. The Mahagonny opera would premier later in Berlin in 1931 as
1782-576: A religious Jewish family in the "Sandvorstadt", the Jewish quarter in Dessau in Saxony , where his father was a cantor . At the age of twelve, Weill started taking piano lessons and made his first attempts at writing music; his earliest preserved composition was written in 1913 and is titled " Mi Addir : Jewish Wedding Song". In 1915, Weill started taking private lessons with Albert Bing, kapellmeister at
1881-475: A script for a semi-documentary feature film about the human impact of mass unemployment, Kuhle Wampe (1932), which was directed by Slatan Dudow . This striking film is notable for its subversive humour, outstanding cinematography by Günther Krampf , and Hanns Eisler's dynamic musical contribution. It still provides a vivid insight into Berlin during the last years of the Weimar Republic . Unhappy
1980-569: A trend that persisted throughout his career of creative activity that was generated by a desire to counter another work (both others' and his own, as his many adaptations and re-writes attest). "Anyone can be creative," he quipped, "it's rewriting other people that's a challenge." Brecht completed his second major play, Drums in the Night , in February 1919. Between November 1921 and April 1922 Brecht made acquaintance with many influential people in
2079-667: A tribute concert as part of the first annual Canwest Cabaret Festival in Toronto. In 2009 Duke Special released an EP, Huckleberry Finn , of five songs from an unfinished musical by Kurt Weill based on the novel by Mark Twain . Kurt Weill is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame . The Kurt Weill Centre (German: Kurt-Weill-Zentrum ) in Dessau was founded in 1993. It provides a museum, library, archive and media centre and organises an annual festival celebrating
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#17327803458122178-521: A triumphant sensation. Brecht spent the last years of the Weimar-era (1930–1933) in Berlin working with his "collective" on the Lehrstücke . These were a group of plays driven by morals, music and Brecht's budding epic theatre. The Lehrstücke often aimed at educating workers on Socialist issues. The Measures Taken ( Die Massnahme ) was scored by Hanns Eisler . In addition, Brecht worked on
2277-582: A two-story wooden bungalow in the Los Angeles beach suburb of Santa Monica . By the late 1930s, the West Side of Los Angeles had become a thriving expatriate colony of European intellectuals and artists. Because the colony included so many writers, directors, actors, and composers from German-speaking countries, it has been referred to as "Weimar on the Pacific". At the center of the émigré community
2376-676: A year. After Germany invaded Norway and Denmark , Brecht left Sweden for Helsinki, Finland, where he awaited a pending visa to the United States. During this time he co-wrote the play Mr Puntila and His Man Matti ( Herr Puntila und sein Knecht Matti ) with Hella Wuolijoki , with whom he lived in the Marlebäck manor house in Iitti . Upon receipt of the U.S. visa in May 1941, the Brecht family relocated to Southern California . They rented
2475-548: Is one of the "Beacons of light" of the Konferenz Nationaler Kultureinrichtungen (Conference of National Cultural Institutions), a union of cultural institutions in the new states of Germany i.e. area that was formerly East Germany . Founded by Lotte Lenya in 1962, the non-profit, private foundation is dedicated to promoting understanding of Weill's life and works and preserving the legacies of Weill and Lenya. The foundation administers
2574-537: The Beggar's Opera before it—is satire and social commentary; but for Weill, coming from a musical perspective, it was something else as well: "It gives us the opportunity to make opera the subject matter for an evening in the theater", part of what Weill saw as a lifelong process to "reform" opera for the modern stage. The stage success was filmed by G. W. Pabst in two language versions: Die 3-Groschen-Oper and L'opéra de quat' sous . Weill and Brecht tried to stop
2673-667: The GULAG after being arrested during Joseph Stalin 's Great Purge , was harshly criticised by Russian émigrés living in the West. At the onset of the Cold War and " Second Red Scare " in the U.S., Brecht was blacklisted by movie studio bosses and investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Along with more than 40 other Hollywood writers, directors, actors and producers, he
2772-628: The Kurt Weill Foundation . From November 1924 to May 1929, Weill wrote hundreds of reviews for the influential and comprehensive radio program guide Der deutsche Rundfunk ; Hans Siebert von Heister had already worked with Weill in the November Group, and offered Weill the job shortly after becoming editor-in-chief. Although he had some success with his first mature non-stage works (such as the String Quartet, Op. 8, and
2871-692: The Manhattan Opera House , running for 153 performances. He and Lotte moved to New York City on September 10, 1935, living first at the St. Moritz Hotel before moving to an apartment at 231 East 62nd Street, between Third and Second Avenues. They rented an old house with Paul Green during the summer of 1936 near Pine Brook Country Club in Nichols, Connecticut , the summer home of the Group Theatre , while finishing Johnny Johnson . Some of
2970-574: The Neue Sachlichkeit movement. The collective's work "mirrored the artistic climate of the middle 1920s", Willett and Manheim argue: with their attitude of Neue Sachlichkeit (or New Matter-of-Factness), their stressing of the collectivity and downplaying of the individual, and their new cult of Anglo-Saxon imagery and sport. Together the "collective" would go to fights, not only absorbing their terminology and ethos (which permeates Man Equals Man ) but also drawing those conclusions for
3069-473: The Preussische Akademie der Künste in Berlin. From January 1921 to December 1923, Weill studied music composition with him and also counterpoint with Philipp Jarnach in Berlin. During his first year he composed his first symphony , Sinfonie in einem Satz , as well as the lieder Die Bekehrte ( Goethe ) and two Rilkelieder for voice and piano. Busoni, then approaching the end of his life,
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3168-509: The SS and a chief architect of the Holocaust ; he was known as "The Hangman of Prague" ( German : der Henker von Prag ). For this film, Brecht's fellow expatriate, composer Hanns Eisler , was nominated for an Academy Award in the category of Best Music Score . The fact that three refugee artists from Nazi Germany – Lang, Brecht and Eisler – collaborated to make the film exemplified
3267-688: The Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra . Singers as varied as Teresa Stratas , Ute Lemper , Gisela May , Anne Sofie von Otter , Max Raabe , Heinz Karl Gruber , Dee Dee Bridgewater and Marianne Faithfull have recorded entire albums of his music. In 1985, Hal Willner produced Lost in the Stars: The Music of Kurt Weill , a tribute album in which Weill's songs were interpreted by a variety of artists, including Todd Rundgren , Tom Waits , Lou Reed , Charlie Haden and Sting . Amanda Palmer , singer-pianist of
3366-400: The copyrights of Brecht's work with her siblings. Brecht formed a writing collective which became prolific and very influential. Elisabeth Hauptmann , Margarete Steffin , Emil Burri, Ruth Berlau and others worked with Brecht and produced the multiple teaching plays , which attempted to create a new dramaturgy for participants rather than passive audiences. These addressed themselves to
3465-578: The home front . He and Maxwell Anderson also joined the volunteer civil service by working as air raid wardens on High Tor Mountain between their homes in New City, New York and Haverstraw, New York in Rockland County . Weill became a naturalized citizen of the United States on August 27, 1943. Weill had ideals of writing music that served a socially useful purpose. In the US, he wrote Down in
3564-526: The " dramaturgical collective" of Erwin Piscator 's first company, which was designed to tackle the problem of finding new plays for its "epic, political, confrontational, documentary theatre". Brecht collaborated with Piscator during the period of the latter's landmark productions, Hoppla, We're Alive! by Toller , Rasputin , The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik , and Konjunktur by Lania . Brecht's most significant contribution
3663-401: The "Herzogliches Hoftheater zu Dessau", who taught him piano, composition, music theory, and conducting. Weill performed publicly on piano for the first time in 1915, both as an accompanist and soloist. The following years he composed numerous lieder to the lyrics of poets such as Joseph von Eichendorff , Arno Holz , and Anna Ritter , as well as a cycle of five songs titled Ofrahs Lieder to
3762-495: The "dangerous image of the self-denying woman" that recurs in his drama. Brecht's home life was comfortably middle class, despite what his occasional attempt to claim peasant origins implied. At school in Augsburg he met Caspar Neher , with whom he formed a life-long creative partnership. Neher designed many of the sets for Brecht's dramas and helped to forge the distinctive visual iconography of their epic theatre . When Brecht
3861-531: The 'Brechtian Punk Cabaret' duo The Dresden Dolls , has Kurt Weill's name on the front of her keyboard (a pun on the name of the instrument maker Kurzweil ) as a tribute to the composer. In 1991, the seminal Swiss industrial band The Young Gods released their album of Kurt Weill songs, The Young Gods Play Kurt Weill . Weill has also been often cited as an influence on Goldfrapp 's Felt Mountain . In 2008, Weill's songs were performed by Canadian musicians (including Sarah Slean and Mary Margaret O'Hara ) in
3960-484: The 1920s and a renewing influence on the musical worldwide. One of its most famous lines underscored the hypocrisy of conventional morality imposed by the Church, working in conjunction with the established order, in the face of working-class hunger and deprivation: Erst kommt das Fressen Dann kommt die Moral. First the grub (lit. "eating like animals, gorging") Then the morality. The success of The Threepenny Opera
4059-469: 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, Weill enthusiastically collaborated in numerous artistic projects supporting the war effort both abroad and on
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4158-584: The Berlin cultural scene. Amongst them was the playwright Arnolt Bronnen with whom he established a joint venture, the Arnolt Bronnen / Bertolt Brecht Company. Brecht changed the spelling of his first name to Bertolt to rhyme with Arnolt. In 1922 while still living in Munich, Brecht came to the attention of an influential Berlin critic, Herbert Ihering : "At 24 the writer Bert Brecht has changed Germany's literary complexion overnight"—he enthused in his review of Brecht's first play to be produced, Drums in
4257-655: The City of Mahagonny ( Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny , 1930), Die Bürgschaft (1932), and Der Silbersee (1933). With no option but to leave Germany, he went first to Paris, where he worked once more with Brecht (after a project with Jean Cocteau failed) on the ballet The Seven Deadly Sins . On April 13, 1933, his musical The Threepenny Opera was given its premiere on Broadway, but closed after 13 performances to mixed reviews. In 1934 he completed his Symphony No. 2, his last purely orchestral work, conducted in Amsterdam and New York by Bruno Walter , and also
4356-497: The Concerto for Violin and Wind Orchestra, Op. 12), which were influenced by Gustav Mahler , Arnold Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky , Weill tended more and more towards vocal music and musical theatre. His musical theatre work and his songs were extremely popular in Germany in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Weill's music was admired by composers such as Alban Berg , Alexander von Zemlinsky , Darius Milhaud and Stravinsky, but it
4455-486: The Epic Theatre " (1930). The principle, a variety of montage , proposed by-passing the "great struggle for supremacy between words, music and production" as Brecht put it, by showing each as self-contained, independent works of art that adopt attitudes towards one another. In 1930 Brecht married Weigel; their daughter Barbara Brecht was born soon after the wedding. She also became an actress and would later share
4554-464: The HUAC at that time, the so-called Hollywood Ten , declined on First Amendment grounds to answer about their Communist Party affiliations and were cited for contempt. Brecht's decision to be a "cooperative" witness—albeit in an evasive way and providing no useful information—led to criticism of him, including accusations of betrayal. The day after his testimony, Brecht fled to Europe and never returned to
4653-487: The HUAC that he had never been a member of the Communist Party . He made wry jokes throughout the proceedings, punctuating his inability to speak English well with continuous references to the translators present, who transformed his German statements into English ones unintelligible to himself. HUAC vice-chairman Karl Mundt thanked Brecht for his cooperation. The remaining unfriendly witnesses who appeared before
4752-505: The Jungle premiered in Munich, also directed by Engel. Opening night proved to be a "scandal"—a phenomenon that would characterize many of his later productions during the Weimar Republic —in which Nazis blew whistles and threw stink bombs at the actors on the stage. In 1924 Brecht worked with the novelist and playwright Lion Feuchtwanger (whom he had met in 1919) on an adaptation of Christopher Marlowe 's Edward II that proved to be
4851-553: The Night , but the productions did not materialize. The year 1927 also saw the first collaboration between Brecht and the young composer Kurt Weill . Together they began to develop Brecht's Mahagonny project, along thematic lines of the biblical Cities of the Plain but rendered in terms of the Neue Sachlichkeit ' s Amerikanismus , which had informed Brecht's previous work. They produced The Little Mahagonny for
4950-542: The Night , and In the Jungle , although at that point only Drums had been produced). The citation for the award insisted that: "[Brecht's] language is vivid without being deliberately poetic, symbolical without being over literary. Brecht is a dramatist because his language is felt physically and in the round." That year he married the Viennese opera singer Marianne Zoff . Their daughter, Hanne Hiob , born in March 1923,
5049-431: The Night —"[he] has given our time a new tone, a new melody, a new vision. [...] It is a language you can feel on your tongue, in your gums, your ear, your spinal column." In November it was announced that Brecht had been awarded the prestigious Kleist Prize (intended for unestablished writers and probably Germany's most significant literary award, until it was abolished in 1932) for his first three plays ( Baal , Drums in
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#17327803458125148-528: The Stars , itself adapted from a quotation from the Venerable Bede : This is the life of men on earth: Out of darkness we come at birth Into a lamplit room, and then – Go forward into dark again. (lyric: Maxwell Anderson ) An excerpt from Maxwell Anderson's eulogy for Weill read: Weill's music continues to be performed both in popular and classical contexts. In Weill's lifetime, his work
5247-654: The Stars" (from the musical of that name ), " My Ship " (from Lady in the Dark ), and " September Song " (from Knickerbocker Holiday ). Weill suffered a heart attack shortly after his 50th birthday and died on April 3, 1950, in New York City. He was buried in Mount Repose Cemetery in Haverstraw, New York . The text and music on his gravestone come from the song "A Bird of Passage" from Lost in
5346-569: The Theater am Kurfürstendamm; it was the first public performance of any of Weill's works in the field of musical theatre. Out of financial need, Weill taught music theory and composition to private students from 1923 to 1925. Among his students were Claudio Arrau , Maurice Abravanel , Heinz Jolles (later known as Henry Jolles) , Nikos Skalkottas , and Esther Zweig . Arrau, Abravanel, and Jolles remained members of Weill's circle of friends thereafter, and Jolles's sole surviving composition predating
5445-542: The U.S. He lived in Zurich , Switzerland for a year. In February 1948 in the Swiss town of Chur , Brecht staged an adaptation of Sophocles ' Antigone , based on a translation by Hölderlin . The play was published under the title Antigonemodell 1948 , accompanied by an essay on the importance of creating a " non-Aristotelian " form of theatre. Akademie der K%C3%BCnste Too Many Requests If you report this error to
5544-626: The Valley , an opera including the song of the same name and other American folk songs. He also wrote a number of songs in support of the American war effort, including the satirical "Schickelgruber" (with lyrics by Howard Dietz ), "Buddy on the Nightshift" (with Oscar Hammerstein ) and – with Brecht again as in his earlier career – the "Ballad of the Nazi Soldier's Wife" ("Und was bekam des Soldaten Weib?"). Intended for broadcast to Germany,
5643-617: 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-Theater under the direction of the new Kapellmeister , Hans Knappertsbusch . During this time, he composed an orchestral suite in E-flat major, a symphonic poem on Rainer Maria Rilke 's The Lay of the Love and Death of Cornet Christopher Rilke , and Schilflieder ("Reed Songs"),
5742-406: The ballad " Mack the Knife ". Weill held the ideal of writing music that served a socially useful purpose, Gebrauchsmusik . He also wrote several works for the concert hall and a number of works on Jewish themes. He became a United States citizen in 1943. Weill was born on March 2, 1900, the third of four children to Albert Weill (1867–1950) and Emma Weill (née Ackermann; 1872–1955). He grew up in
5841-442: The chords found in his score while noting that most other banjoists had complained that they were not actually written for the banjo at all. Weill fled Nazi Germany in March 1933. A prominent and popular Jewish composer, Weill was officially denounced for his political views and sympathies, and became a target of the Nazi authorities, who criticized and interfered with performances of his later stage works, such as Rise and Fall of
5940-400: The composer's work. It is housed in the Feininger house, a house designed by the architect Walter Gropius which was originally lived in by the artist Lyonel Feininger . The property is part of the World Heritage site the Bauhaus and its Sites in Weimar, Dessau and Bernau . The centre, with its collection of material on Weill, is listed as a cultural memorial of national importance. The centre
6039-507: The conductor Fritz Busch introduced him to the dramatist Georg Kaiser , with whom Weill would have a long-lasting creative partnership resulting in several one-act operas. At Kaiser's house in Grünheide , Weill first met the singer and actress Lotte Lenya in the summer of 1924. The couple were married twice: in 1926 and again in 1937 (after their divorce in 1933). She took great care to support Weill's work, and after his death she took it upon herself to increase awareness of his music, forming
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#17327803458126138-487: The development of the American musical . In 1939 he wrote the music for Railroads on Parade, a musical spectacular put on at the 1939 World's Fair in New York to celebrate the American railroad industry (book by Edward Hungerford). Unique among Broadway composers of the time, Weill insisted on writing his own orchestrations (with some very few exceptions, such as the dance music in Street Scene ). He worked with writers such as Maxwell Anderson and Ira Gershwin , and wrote
6237-631: The film adaptation through a well publicized lawsuit—which Weill won and Brecht lost. Weill continued to work with Brecht on the musical Happy End (1929), best known for the songs "Surabaya Johnny", "Bilbao Song", and "Sailor's Tango"; the children's opera Der Jasager (1930); and the opera Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (1930), best known for " Alabama Song " (later recorded by The Doors , among many others). Weill's working association with Brecht, although successful, came to an end over politics in 1930. Though Weill associated with socialism, after Brecht tried to push their work even further in
6336-416: The improvisational approach of the commedia dell'arte in which the actors chatted with the prompter about their roles), and Pirandello 's Six Characters in Search of an Author in his group of Berlin theatres. A new version of Brecht's third play, now entitled Jungle: Decline of a Family , opened at the Deutsches Theater in October 1924, but was not a success. In the asphalt city I'm at home. From
6435-403: The influence this generation of German exiles had on American culture. Hangmen Also Die! turned out to be Brecht's only script that became a Hollywood film. The money he earned from selling the script enabled him to write The Visions of Simone Machard , Schweik in the Second World War and an adaptation of Webster 's The Duchess of Malfi . During the reign of the Third Reich , Brecht
6534-417: The internationally recognized Lotte Lenya Competition, a grant program, various sponsorships and fellowships, the Weill-Lenya Research Center, and the Kurt Weill Prize, and publishes the Kurt Weill Edition and the Kurt Weill Newsletter . Trustees of the New York-based organization have included Harold Prince , Victoria Clark , Jeanine Tesori , Tazewell Thompson , and Teresa Stratas . Weill's grandmother
6633-401: The land where heroes are needed. Galileo , in Brecht's Life of Galileo ( 1943 ) Fearing persecution, Brecht fled Nazi Germany in February 1933, just after Hitler took power. Following brief spells in Prague, Zurich and Paris, he and Weigel accepted an invitation from journalist and author Karin Michaëlis to move to Denmark. The Brechts first stayed with Michaëlis at her house on
6732-426: The massive worker arts organisation that existed in Germany and Austria in the 1920s. So did Brecht's first great play, Saint Joan of the Stockyards , which attempts to portray the drama in financial transactions. This collective adapted John Gay 's The Beggar's Opera , with Brecht's lyrics set to music by Kurt Weill . Retitled The Threepenny Opera ( Die Dreigroschenoper ) it was the biggest hit in Berlin of
6831-401: The music for Jacques Deval 's play Marie Galante [ fr ] . A production of his operetta Der Kuhhandel ( A Kingdom for a Cow ) took him to London in 1935, and later that year he went to the United States in connection with The Eternal Road , a "Biblical Drama" by Franz Werfel that had been commissioned by members of New York's Jewish community and was premiered in 1937 at
6930-421: The next few years record numerous visits to see Valentin perform. Brecht compared Valentin to Charlie Chaplin , for his "virtually complete rejection of mimicry and cheap psychology". Writing in his Messingkauf Dialogues years later, Brecht identified Valentin, along with Wedekind and Büchner , as his "chief influences" at that time: But the man he learnt most from was the clown Valentin , who performed in
7029-487: The other artists who summered there in 1936 were Elia Kazan , Harry Morgan , John Garfield , Lee J. Cobb , Will Geer , Clifford Odets , Howard da Silva and Irwin Shaw . Rather than continue to write in the same style that had characterized his European compositions, Weill made a study of American popular and stage music. His American output contains individual songs and entire shows that not only became highly respected and admired, but have been seen as seminal works in
7128-810: The publisher's commission ran out. In 1925 in Mannheim the artistic exhibition Neue Sachlichkeit (" New Objectivity ") had given its name to the new post- Expressionist movement in the German arts. With little to do at the Deutsches Theater, Brecht began to develop his Man Equals Man project, which was to become the first product of "the 'Brecht collective'—that shifting group of friends and collaborators on whom he henceforward depended." This collaborative approach to artistic production, together with aspects of Brecht's writing and style of theatrical production, mark Brecht's work from this period as part of
7227-495: The question of how to dramatize the complex economic relationships of modern capitalism in his unfinished project Joe P. Fleischhacker (which Piscator's theatre announced in its programme for the 1927–28 season). It wasn't until his Saint Joan of the Stockyards (written between 1929 and 1931) that Brecht solved it. In 1928 he discussed with Piscator plans to stage Shakespeare 's Julius Caesar and Brecht's own Drums in
7326-556: The rise of the Nazi regime in 1933 is a fragment of a work for four pianos he and Weill wrote jointly. Weill's compositions during his last year of studies included Quodlibet , an orchestral suite version of Die Zaubernacht ; Frauentanz , seven medieval poems for soprano, flute, viola, clarinet, French horn, and bassoon; and Recordare for choir and children's choir to words from the Book of Lamentations . Further premieres that year included
7425-469: The sense that the new subject matter demanded a new dramatic form , the use of songs to interrupt and comment: all these are found in his notes and essays of the 1920s, and he bolstered them by citing such Piscatorial examples as the step-by-step narrative technique of Schweik and the oil interests handled in Konjunktur ('Petroleum resists the five-act form'). Brecht was struggling at the time with
7524-635: The small island of Thurø close to the island of Funen . They later bought their own house in Svendborg on Funen. This Svendborg house at Skovsbo Strand 8 became the Brecht family residence for the next six years. They often received guests there including Walter Benjamin , Hanns Eisler and Ruth Berlau . Brecht also travelled frequently to Copenhagen, Paris, Moscow, New York and London for various projects and collaborations. When war seemed imminent in April 1939, he moved to Stockholm, where he remained for
7623-581: The song chronicled the progress of the Nazi war machine through the gifts sent to the proud wife at home by her man at the front: furs from Oslo, a silk dress from Paris etc., until finally, from Russia, she receives her widow's veil. Apart from " Mack the Knife " and " Pirate Jenny " from The Threepenny Opera , his most famous songs include " Alabama Song " (from Mahagonny ), "Surabaya Johnny" (from Happy End ), " Speak Low " (from One Touch of Venus ), "Lost in
7722-447: The theatre as a whole which Brecht set down in his theoretical essay "Emphasis on Sport" and tried to realise by means of the harsh lighting, the boxing-ring stage and other anti-illusionistic devices that henceforward appeared in his own productions. In 1925, Brecht saw two films that had a significant influence on him: Chaplin 's The Gold Rush and Eisenstein 's Battleship Potemkin . Brecht had compared Valentin to Chaplin, and
7821-559: The time one of the leading three or four theatres in the world—brought him to Berlin. In 1923 Brecht's marriage to Zoff began to break down (though they did not divorce until 1927). Brecht had become involved with both Elisabeth Hauptmann and Helene Weigel. Brecht and Weigel's son, Stefan , was born in October 1924. In his role as dramaturg, Brecht had much to stimulate him but little work of his own. Reinhardt staged Shaw 's Saint Joan , Goldoni 's Servant of Two Masters (with
7920-440: The two of them provided models for Galy Gay in Man Equals Man . Brecht later wrote that Chaplin "would in many ways come closer to the epic than to the dramatic theatre's requirements." They met several times during Brecht's time in the United States, and discussed Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux project, which it is possible Brecht influenced. In 1926 a series of short stories was published under Brecht's name, though Hauptmann
8019-605: The very start Provided with every last sacrament: With newspapers. And tobacco. And brandy To the end mistrustful, lazy and content. Bertolt Brecht, "Of Poor BB" At this time Brecht revised his important "transitional poem", "Of Poor BB". In 1925, his publishers provided him with Elisabeth Hauptmann as an assistant for the completion of his collection of poems, Devotions for the Home ( Hauspostille , eventually published in January 1927). She continued to work with him after
8118-481: The young Brecht an admiration for the iconoclastic dramatist and cabaret star Frank Wedekind . From July 1916, Brecht's newspaper articles began appearing under the new name "Bert Brecht" (his first theatre criticism for the Augsburger Volkswille appeared in October 1919). Brecht was drafted into military service in the autumn of 1918, only to be posted back to Augsburg as a medical orderly in
8217-528: Was 16, World War I broke out. Initially enthusiastic, Brecht soon changed his mind on seeing his classmates "swallowed by the army". Brecht was nearly expelled from school in 1915 for writing an essay in response to the line Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori from the Roman poet Horace , calling it Zweckpropaganda ("cheap propaganda for a specific purpose") and arguing that only an empty-headed person could be persuaded to die for their country. His expulsion
8316-574: Was Brecht's old friend Salka Viertel , whom he had known in the Berlin theatre world of the 1920s. From her house in Santa Monica Canyon, Viertel hosted frequent tea parties and salons where European intellectuals could mingle with Hollywood luminaries. Brecht first met actor Charles Laughton at a Viertel party, and it led to the two men collaborating on the English-language version of Life of Galileo . Although Brecht
8415-523: Was Jeanette Hochstetter of Liedolsheim in Baden-Württemberg . Weill was one of four members of the same Hochstetter family to lead distinguished careers in the fields of music and literature. His first cousin once removed was Caesar Hochstetter (born January 12, 1863, in Ladenburg , a suburb of Mannheim – his date and place of death are unknown but this was probably during The Holocaust ),
8514-678: Was Weill's own path to some of the same notions of Epic theater and the Verfremdungseffekt ( distancing effect ) advocated by his future collaborator Brecht. To support his family in Leipzig, Weill also worked as a pianist in a Bierkeller tavern. In 1922, Weill joined the November Group 's music faction. That year he composed a psalm, a divertimento for orchestra, and Sinfonia Sacra: Fantasia, Passacaglia, and Hymnus for Orchestra . On November 18, 1922, his children's pantomime Die Zaubernacht ( The Magic Night ) premiered at
8613-490: Was a German theatre practitioner , playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic , he had his first successes as a playwright in Munich and moved to Berlin in 1924, where he wrote The Threepenny Opera with Elisabeth Hauptmann and Kurt Weill and began a life-long collaboration with the composer Hanns Eisler . Immersed in Marxist thought during this period, Brecht wrote didactic Lehrstücke and became
8712-467: Was a major influence on Weill. Where Weill's early compositions reflect the post- Wagnerian Romanticism and Expressionism common in German classical music of that era, Busoni was a Neoclassicist . Busoni's influence can be seen especially in Weill's vocal and stage works, which moved steadily away from having the music reflect the characters' emotions to have it function as (often ironic) commentary. This
8811-633: Was a prominent practitioner of the Exilliteratur . He expressed his opposition to the National Socialist and Fascist movements in his famous plays: Life of Galileo , Mother Courage and Her Children , The Good Person of Szechwan , The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui , The Caucasian Chalk Circle , Fear and Misery of the Third Reich , and many others. However, his refusal to speak in support of Carola Neher , who died in
8910-510: Was a successful German actress. In 1923, Brecht wrote a scenario for what was to become a short slapstick film, Mysteries of a Barbershop , directed by Erich Engel and starring Karl Valentin. Despite a lack of success at the time, its experimental inventiveness and the subsequent success of many of its contributors have meant that it is now considered one of the most important films in German film history . In May of that year, Brecht's In
9009-462: Was also criticized by others: Schoenberg, who later revised his opinion, and Anton Webern . His best-known work is The Threepenny Opera (1928), a reworking of John Gay 's The Beggar's Opera , written in collaboration with Bertolt Brecht . Engel directed the original production of The Threepenny Opera in 1928. It contains Weill's most famous song, " Mack the Knife " (" Die Moritat von Mackie Messer "). Textually Threepenny Opera —like
9108-534: Was closely associated with writing them. Following the production of Man Equals Man in Darmstadt that year, Brecht began studying Marxism and socialism in earnest, under the supervision of Hauptmann. "When I read Marx 's Capital ", a note by Brecht reveals, "I understood my plays." Marx was, it continues, "the only spectator for my plays I'd ever come across." Inspired by the developments in USSR , Brecht wrote
9207-403: Was followed by the quickly thrown together Happy End . It was a personal and a commercial failure. At the time the book was purported to be by the mysterious Dorothy Lane (now known to be Elisabeth Hauptmann, Brecht's secretary and close collaborator). Brecht only claimed authorship of the song texts. Brecht would later use elements of Happy End as the germ for his Saint Joan of the Stockyards ,
9306-500: Was most associated with the voice of his wife, Lotte Lenya , but shortly after his death " Mack the Knife " was established by Louis Armstrong and Bobby Darin as a jazz standard. His music has since been recorded by many performers, ranging from Nina Simone , Judy Garland , Frank Sinatra , The Doors , Ella Fitzgerald , David Bowie , Robbie Williams , Judy Collins , John Zorn , Dagmar Krause , Steeleye Span , The Young Gods and PJ Harvey to New York's Metropolitan Opera and
9405-648: Was not enamored of life in the movie capital, he worked hard to find a place for himself as a screenwriter. He co-wrote the screenplay for the Fritz Lang -directed film Hangmen Also Die! (1943) which was loosely based on the 1942 assassination of Reinhard Heydrich , the Nazi Deputy Reich Protector of the German-occupied Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia . Heydrich had been Heinrich Himmler 's right-hand man in
9504-454: Was only prevented by the intervention of Romuald Sauer, a priest who also served as a substitute teacher at Brecht's school. On his father's recommendation, Brecht sought to avoid being conscripted into the army by exploiting a loophole which allowed for medical students to be deferred. He subsequently registered for a medical course at Munich University , where he enrolled in 1917. There he studied drama with Arthur Kutscher , who inspired in
9603-472: Was part of the first group of Hollywood film artists to be subpoenaed by the House Un-American Activities Committee for alleged Communist Party affiliations. The day after testifying, he returned to Europe, eventually settling in East Berlin where he co-founded the theatre company Berliner Ensemble with his wife and long-time collaborator, actress Helene Weigel . Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (as
9702-468: Was subpoenaed in September 1947 by the HUAC. Although he was one of the 19 "unfriendly" witnesses who had declared ahead of time they would not cooperate with the House investigation, Brecht eventually decided to go before the committee and answer questions. He later explained he was following the advice of attorneys and did not want to delay his planned trip to Europe. On 30 October 1947, Brecht testified to
9801-483: Was to the adaptation of the unfinished episodic comic novel Schweik , which he later described as a "montage from the novel". The Piscator productions influenced Brecht's ideas about staging and design, and alerted him to the radical potentials offered to the " epic " playwright by the development of stage technology (particularly projections). What Brecht took from Piscator "is fairly plain, and he acknowledged it" Willett suggests: The emphasis on Reason and didacticism,
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