Discovering the Symphonies of Kurt Weill

My experiences with the music of Kurt Weill go all the way back to the summer before I began my freshman year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I spent that period in a music camp, where the major project was a staged performance of The Threepenny Opera (in English); but, over the course of that summer, we did a “deep dive” into Weill’s collaborations with Bertolt Brecht, many of which have found their way into articles on this site. While I was aware of many of subsequent works by Weill without Brecht, I knew virtually nothing about his orchestral work.

Conductor Joana Mallwitz (courtesy of Crossover Media)

As a result, I was glad to see the Deutsche Grammophon release of The Kurt Weill Album, on which Joana Mallwitz conducts the Konzerthausorchester Berlin in performances of the two symphonies that Weill composed, the first (a single movement in four sections) in 1921 and the second, a three-movement work that Bruno Walter premiered with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1934. Between these “bookends” is a performance of the score for the ballet “The Seven Deadly Sins” with a libretto by Bertolt Brecht. The vocalists are Katharine Mehrling as the two Annas and the “Greek chorus” of tenors Michael Porter and Simon Bode, baritone Michael Nagl, and bass-baritone Oliver Zwarg.

Personally, I have to confess that neither symphony had much impact on me. My greatest interest was in how Weill could manage instrumentation without having to accommodate voices. Every now and then, one will encounter a gesture or two recalling some of the sharp edges in his vocal settings; but these depart as quickly as they arrive. One has to wonder whether Weill’s only motive in writing these symphonies was to convince his colleagues that, for all of his dramatic efforts, he could still be a “serious composer.”

Such a situation reminds me of the composer David Raksin, described on his Wikipedia page as the “Grandfather of Film Music.” In spite of his success on the silver screen, he was obsessed with becoming a “serious composer.” The story goes that he pled his case to his Los Angeles friend Arnold Schoenberg. Schoenberg replied, “You composed ‘Laura,’ one of the best songs ever written! Why do you want to follow in my footsteps!” In a similar vein, I fear that there are few, if any, movements in either of Weill’s symphonies that can hold a candle to “Mack the Knife!”