{"id":2338,"date":"2022-09-06T17:57:41","date_gmt":"2022-09-06T21:57:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=2338"},"modified":"2022-09-06T17:57:44","modified_gmt":"2022-09-06T21:57:44","slug":"kurt-weills-immigrant-odyssey-on-npr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2022\/09\/kurt-weills-immigrant-odyssey-on-npr.html","title":{"rendered":"Kurt Weill’s Immigrant Odyssey on NPR"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Kurt Weill, a refugee from Nazi Germany, turned himself into one of Broadway\u2019s leading composers \u2013 an amazing feat of assimilation. After the war, he only returned to Europe once, in 1947  \u2013 and reported: \u201cStrangely enough, wherever I found decency and humanity in the world, it reminded me of America.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does that sentiment play today? It\u2019s a question posed and pondered in my latest NPR \u201cMore than Music\u201d documentary, <\/a><\/strong>which treats Weill\u2019s odyssey as a lesson in immigration.\u00a0\u00a0The commentators include the social critic John McWhorter and the Weill scholar Kim Kowalke, both of whom reference Weill\u2019s anti-apartheid musical\u00a0Lost in the Stars<\/em>\u00a0(1949) \u2013 an implicit condemnation of Jim Crow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kowalke says: \u201cThere\u2019s no question that when he arrived [in 1935] Weill believed in the American dream. . . . That love of country persisted. . . . But like so many others after the war Weill felt that the American dream had been punctured. And I often think — what if he had lived to see what\u2019s going on in this country today? How would he respond?\u201d Maybe, Kowalke continues, with the\u00a0\u00a0\u201cbleak warnings\u201d about the \u201cfragility of democracy\u201d earlier to be found in Weill\u2019s\u00a0Die B\u00fcrgschaft<\/em>\u00a0(1931) and\u00a0Der<\/em>\u00a0Silbersee<\/em>\u00a0(1933).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked \u201cWhat makes Weill Weill?\u201d, Weill himself is heard commenting, on a 1941 radio broadcast: \u201dI seem to have a very strong awareness of the sufferings of underprivileged people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tracking Weill in Berlin, Paris, and Broadway, our broadcast samples historic recordings by Bertolt Brecht, Walter Huston, Todd Duncan, and Bobby Darin. And we hear terrific modern-day renditions, recorded in live performance at the Brevard Music Festival, by Lisa Vroman and William Sharp, by Brevard\u2019s Janiec Opera Company, and by the Brevard Music Center Orchestra conducted by Keith Lockhart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My own favorite Weill performance, which closes the show (at 42:20), is Weill himself singing a Broadway love song thathas nothing whatsoever to do with social justice: \u201cThat\u2019s Him.\u201d It\u2019s yet another face of Kurt Weill \u2013 of the worldly immigrant, the New York cosmopolite. It magically evokes the sophistication of Broadway 80 years ago. And the words couldn\u2019t be more distant from the sardonic political wit of Weill\u2019s Berlin partner Bertolt Brecht. They\u2019re by the poet Ogden Nash, who specialized in urbane nonsense rhymes — and who here conveys romantic effusion via whimsical understatement. Nash begins:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You know the way you feel when there is autumn in the air,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The way you feel when Antoine has finished with your hair,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nash and Weill rhyme about the way you feel \u201cwhen you smell bread baking,\u201d the \u201cway you feel when a tooth stops aching.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s Him\u201d peaks with a veritable paean of understatement. The romantic object of desire is<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not arty, not actory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s like a plumber when you need a Plumber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s . . . satisfactory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Accompanying himself at the piano, Weill is himself \u201cnot actory.\u201d Mary Martin, who sang \u201cThat\u2019s Him\u201d on Broadway, sounds \u201carty\u201d by comparison. Weill is here the \u201cplumber\u201d: no less than the song, his rendition divinely celebrates the quotidian. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To listen to the show, click here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

LISTENING GUIDE:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

00:00 \u2013 Bobby Darin and Bertolt Brecht sing \u201cMack the Knife\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3:20 \u2013 Walter Huston sings \u201cSeptember Song\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4:40 \u2013 Weill on the radio show \u201cI am an American\u201d (1941)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7:00 \u2013 Lisa Vroman and William Sharp sing \u201cHow Can You Tell an American?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9:00 \u2013 John McWhorter on Weill\u2019s notion of \u201cAmerica\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

12:16 \u2013 The Seven Deadly Sins<\/em>, with commentary by Keith Lockhart<\/p>\n\n\n\n

17:45 \u2013 Lisa Vroman sings \u201cMy Ship\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

22:00 \u2013 Weill sets Walt Whitman in response to Pearl Harbor<\/p>\n\n\n\n

25:40 \u2013 The Ice Cream Sextet from Street Scene <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

31:40 \u2013 Kim Kowalke on Weill and social justice<\/p>\n\n\n\n

35:00 \u2013 John McWhorter on Lost in the Stars<\/p>\n\n\n\n

38:20 \u2013 Kim Kowalke on Weill and the American dream<\/p>\n\n\n\n

42:20 \u2013 Weill sings \u201cThat\u2019s Him\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FOR A RELATED BLOG, click here.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kurt Weill, a refugee from Nazi Germany, turned himself into one of Broadway\u2019s leading composers \u2013 an amazing feat of assimilation. After the war, he only returned to Europe once, in 1947  \u2013 and reported: \u201cStrangely enough, wherever I found decency and humanity in the world, it reminded me of America.\u201d How does that sentiment play […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2338","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-BI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2338"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2344,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2338\/revisions\/2344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}