Customer Reviews

On Broadway

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It would seem a bit disingenuous to criticize a disc called "Kurt Weill on Broadway" for excluding selections from "Die Dreigroschenoper," a work written in 1920's Berlin in a style so distinctly different from that of his Broadway years. There are many, many recordings of "3-Penny" in both German and English, both complete and selections; there's no reason for their inclusion here. These Broadway years called for a very different Weill, one whose work is not well-enough represented on disc. Would that these beautifully-assembled selections had been more extensive, in a 2-disc set -- and that the full scores from all his American productions could be so well presented as these little-known selections.

'Kurt Weill on Broadway' sung by Thomas Hampson is a good Kurt Weill album, but not the best it could have been. I have a strong suspicion that rather than do a collection of those English stage songs for which Weill is best known, Hampson simply did a collection of songs by Kurt Weill in which Hampson has already performed. Most of Weill's more famous English songs such as 'Sing Low' and 'September Song' are missing. And that doesn't even touch on the fact that there is nothing from 'The Threepenny Opera' which, although it was written in German, ran for a very long time on Broadway (or off Broadway)in a famous English translation by Mark Blitzstein. And, a third of the album is taken up by selections from 'The Firebrand of Florence', not one of Weill's best pieces.

I am happy to have these performances, but as an album, it probably only appeals to Kurt Weill fans. One thing I will say, however, is that it is really nice to have a male voice doing some Weill, since so much of his stuff was written and is performed by female Weill specialists.