Weill: Suite from Die Dreigroschenoper [“Threepenny Opera”]

Suite from Die Dreigroschenoper [“Threepenny Opera”]

Kurt Weill
(1900-1950)

That in the year of the centenary of his birth Kurt Weill would be recognised as one of the most gifted composers of the first half of the twentieth century would probably have amazed some of his contemporaries, who often regarded him as a somewhat “disreputable” composer, usually in a backhanded tribute to his remarkable gift for musical theatre in a truly popular musical idiom. Indeed, we are only now beginning to be able to put Weill’s achievement into perspective, even if his true statue is clouded by the lack of familiar with many important stages in his short career.

And what a career! The son of the chief Kantor at the synagogue in Dessau, Weill was a precocious musical talent, studying as a teenager with Humperdinck, going on to become a well-loved pupil of Feruccio Busoni in Berlin. He taught for a while as an apprentice to Busoni, numbering among his students Claudio Arrau, Nikolaos Skalkottas and Maurice Abravanel, and composed a couple of symphonies, a string quartet, cello sonata, choral music and many songs before his mid-twenties. He became associated with the expressionist playwright Georg Kaiser, which led to the production of an opera, Der Protagonist) (1926) which was recognised as the first genuine operatic success by one of the new younger German composers of the day.

It was a heady time to pursue a composing career in Berlin in the turbulent atmosphere of the Weimar Republic. The defeat of Germany in the Great War, and the political upheaval which followed was mirrored in the arts in a unique and vivid manner. The old guard (notably Richard Strauss, Hans Pfitzner and company) went on their familiar course, quite uncomprehending of the changes in the artistic world, while the generation of Hindemith, Franz Schreker, Ernst Krenek and Weill moved forward into quite new and challenging intellectual territory. These younger musicians were much influenced by the appearance of American Jazz in European life, and for the first time (at least in the German-speaking world) the culture of the New World began to have an impact upon the old. This was especially the case with Weill. After further collaboration with Kaiser, Weill began a partnership with Bertolt Brecht, whose name is indelibly linked with his. Ironically, this relationship was actually of short duration, resulting in only five stage works (out of Weill’s lifetime total of 29), beginning with the sensational success of of Die Dreigroschenoper [Threepenny Opera] (1928), concluding with the Seven Deadly Sins (1933). Despite the fact that both men would find their way to America, their artistic partnership was never revived.

The year 1933 marks a dramatic change in Weill’s life and work. Within two weeks of the Reichstag fire and the total takeover of the government by the Nazis, Weill fled to Paris. The politically inflammatory nature of his Brecht collaborations (especially the Threepenny Opera and The Rise and Fall of the City Mahagonny) made Weill a marked man, with his left-wing sympathies and Jewish origins. Weill and his wife Lotte Lenya found their way to America in 1935, where almost at once he eagerly began to collaborate with such leading theatrical figures such as Maxwell Anderson, S. J. Perlman , Langston Hughes and Allen J. Lerner. Taken by Ira Gershwin to the dress rehearsals of Porgy and Bess, Weill was profoundly moved, telling Gershwin, “It’s a great country where music like that can be written and played.” After the death of George Gershwin, Weill would collaborate with his brother, Ira.

The stage works written for Broadway include great successes such as Knickerbocker Holiday, Lady in the Dark, One Touch of Venus, Street Scene (an opera) and Lost in the Stars---a musical inspired by Alan Paton’s novel about pre-apartheidt South Africa. Until recently it has been fashionable to dismiss Weill’s American works as catering to sentimental Broadway sensibilities, especially when compared with the edgy, politically-charged works from his partnership with Brecht. That view is beginning to give way to a broader picture of Weill as an artist of sensitivity and integrity, whose lifetime achievement forms an impressive whole.

To speak of Die Dreigroschenoper as a “sensational success” is to put it mildly. This abrasive 20^th century retelling of John Gay’s 18^th century Beggar’s Opera opened in August, 1928, and within five years had racked up more than 10,000 performances in every major European city! At one point it was staged in no fewer than a DOZEN Germany cities simultaneously! In 1954 Marc Blitzstein’s version of the work in English opened on Broadway, running for a total of 2,611 performances!

As in the 18^th century original, the Threepenny Opera is a savage satire on established authority, corrupt judges, police, a colourful array of murders, thieves, whores and all manner of low-life. Weimar Germany loved it – the Nazis foamed with rage at such “Degenerate Art.”

In 1929 the eminent conductor, Otto Klemperer commissioned Kurt Weill to produce an orchestral suite from Die Dreigroschenoper for performance at a concert at Klemperer’s Kroll Opera in Berlin. The result was an eight-movement suite entitled Kleine Dreigroschenmusik (“Little Threepenny Music”), scored for a characteristically sharply-etched Weill instrumental combination of winds, brass, percussion, plus saxophones, piano, accordion, banjo and guitar. [56 lines.

IF THE ORIGINAL 1929 “KLEINE DREIGROSCHENMUSIK” IS TO BE PERFORMED, THE FOLLOWING SENTENCE SHOULD CONCLUDE THE PARAGRAPH ABOVE.

BUT IF THE FULL ORCHESTRA VERSION IS TO BE PERFORMED, THIS SENTENCE SHOULD BE DELETED:

This instrumentation, without strings, with the distictive timbres of saxophones, piano, accordion, guitar and banjo, creates a unique sonority and coloration that is utterly original with Kurt Weill, vividly expressing the character of the theatre piece, as well as evoking for listeners 70 years later the very essence of 1920s Berlin and the edgy, jangling feel of the Weimar Republic era.

HERE FOLLOWS DESCRIPTION WHICH PERTAINS TO THE FULL-ORCHESTRA SUITE:

IF THE ORIGINAL 1929 “KLEINE DREIGROSCHENMUSIK’ IS TO BE PERFORMED, THIS PARAGRAPH SHOULD BE DELETED, AS WELL AS DESCRIPTIVE COMMENTS SPECIFIC TO THIS VERSION---THESE ARE INDICATED BELOW.

The “Suite from the Threepenny Opera” to be heard today is full orchestra version which includes five of the eight movements in Weill’s original composition, plus an orchestral version of a vocal number not included by Weill in the 1929 composition. This version, scored for a full conventional orchestra (full winds, brass, strings, percussion, plus harp and piano), came into being in circumstances which even the experienced scholars at the Kurt Weill Foundation in New York City cannot quite explain. It was produced by a certain Max Schoenherr, probably at the time of the copyright date, 1956---six years after Weill’s death. There is some suggestion that it might have been instigated by Lotte Lenya, Weill’s widow. In a telephone conversation to Zurich, Otto Klemperer’s daughter gave a hearty laugh and said, “well, Lotte was always short of money!” The writer of these notes would conjectures that the huge success of the Threepenny Opera in New York (where Lenya then made her home) might have led her to commission a serviceable full orchestra version to take advantage of the acclaim the work was winning.

The Suite comprises the following movements, all of them close instrumental paraphrases of vocal numbers from the Threepenny Opera:

IF THE 1929 VERSION, “KLEINE DREIGROSCHENMUSIK” IS TO BE PERFORMED, THE PRECEDING PARAGRAPH WILL BE DELETED, AND THE FOLLOWING SENTENCE WILL TAKE ITS PLACE:

The Kleine Dreigroschenmusik comprises the following movements, all of them close instrumental

Paraphrases of vocal numbers from The Threepenny Opera:

HERE FOLLOWS BRIEF COMMENTS ABOUT THE INDIVIDUAL MOVEMENTS.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THERE ARE TWO ENTIRELY DIFFERENT 3^RD MOVEMENT, ACCORDING TO WHICH VERSION IS PERFORMED. AND ALTHOUGH THE “KANONEN-SONG” IS USED IN BOTH VERSIONS, IT IS No. 6 IN THE FULL ORCHESTRA VERSION, BUT NO. 7 IN THE “KLEINE DREIGROSCHENMUSIK” VERSION.

THUS IF THE FULL ORCHESTRA SUITE IS USED, PLEASE DELETE THE COMMENT REGARDING THE 3^rd MOVEMENT IN THE “KLEINE DREIGROSCHENMUSIK” (“Anstatt-dass Song”), AS WELL AS THE FINAL THREE MOVEMENTS ( “Tango-Ballade,” “Kanonen-Song,” and “Dreigroschen-Finale.”)

SIMILARLY, IF THE “KLEINE DREIGROSCHENMUSIK” IS TO BE PERFORMED, DELETE THE COMMENT REGARDING THE “Liebeslied” (No. 3), AND DELETE No. 6, the “Kanonen-Song”

---which in the KLEINE DREIGROSCHENMUSIK VERSION APPEARS AS NO. 7.

1. Overture. A heavy-footed fanfare with striding, accented chordal accompaniment, the opera’s atmosphere of deadly seriousness and mockery is set out in this challenging introduction.

2. “Die Moritat von Mackie Messer,” is always known in English as “Mack the Knife,” and is certainly the most familiar tune in the entire Threepenny Opera. Setting the mood of the work, it is sung by a ballad singer in a prologue. In this version the song is heard in a straight-forward orchestral setting, concluding without any final flourishes in the spirit of who-gives-a-damn?!

KLEINE DEIGROSCHENMUSIK:

3. “Anstatt-dass Song” (“The Instead-of Song”) A strutting, mocking little number in which Polly’s father warns her that Mack the Knife is a notorious gang leader.

FULL ORCHESTRA VERSION:

3. Liebeslied (“Love Song”). This is a love duet sung by the main characters, Polly Peachum and Mack the Knife on their wedding night.

4. “Die Ballade vom angenehmen Leben” (“The Ballad of the Easy Life) exemplifies the jaunty cynical tone so characteristic of the opera, with lively, jazz-inflected rhythmic patterns, glittering interjections in the piano and crooning melodic lines in the winds and solo trombone.

5. Polly’s Lied. Opening with long sustained notes against a pattering rhythmic background,

the movement is nothing more than a plaintive, artless little melody heard without embellishment.

FULL ORCHESTRA VERSION:

6. “Kanonen-Song” (“Cannon Song”). Marked “Charlston Tempo,” this forms a bouncy

conclusion to the suite, with its jerky, almost “industrial” rhythmic character. It trundles irrepressibly forward, coming to a halt with a sudden slam on the brakes.

THESE 3 MOVEMENTS (nos. 6, 7, 8) ONLY PLAYED AS PART OF THE KLEINE DREIGROSCHENMUSIK:

6. Tango-Ballade (“Tango Ballad”) Perhaps the movement closest in character to actual American

popular music of the ‘20s, with keening melodic lines in the saxophone against a vigorous tango beat.

7. “Kanonen-Song” (“Cannon Song”). Marked “Charlston Tempo,” this forms a bouncy

conclusion to the suite, with its jerky, almost “industrial” rhythmic character. It trundles irrepressibly

foreward, coming to a halt with a sudden slam on the brakes.

8. Dreigroschen-Finale A rather muted movement, gradually rising in intensity to conclude with

a chorale-like theme intoned with forceful determination over a rhythmic background.