Kurt Weill - His Music and His Life
One of the most versatile and influential composers of the musical theatre in the twentieth century, Kurt Weill ( b. Dessau, Germany, March 2, 1900; d. New York, April 3, 1950 ), had two important careers, one in Germany in the 1920s, the other from his emigration to the United States in 1935 until his death. The style of his second period is sharply distinct from that of the first. Die Dreigroschenoper ( The Threepenny Opera 1928) is by far his best known stage piece; its famous "Mack the Knife" ("Die Moritat von Mackie Messer") has been recorded countless times by an unbelievably wide range of artists (Bobby Darin, Louis Armstrong, Lotte Lenya). Weill also composed a number of "serious" works for the concert hall. The third of four children born to a cantor in the Jewish quarter of Dessau, Weill began piano lessons at the age of twelve and soon began to write songs, mostly to the verse of serious poets. He studied...