Kurt Weill (1900-1950)
Aylish Kerrigan sings Kurt Weill
Aylish Kerrigan (mezzo-soprano), Vladimir Valdivia (piano)
rec. Sonic Arts Centre, Belfast, UK, no dates listed
Métier MEX77115 [67]

Here is how Divine Art, Métier’s parent company, advertises this disc: “Get ready to be transported to the bustling streets of Berlin and the bright lights of Broadway […]  a journey through the timeless songs of Kurt Weill, one of the most renowned composers of the 20th century.”

The recital surveys songs on which Kurt Weill collaborated with Bertolt Brecht and with other librettists, including Maxwell Anderson, Alan Jay Lerner and Ogden Nash. There was a major hiatus in Weill’s life when he fled Germany for Paris, then London and finally the United States in 1935. Back home, he had written some of his most famous operas: The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahogany, Happy End and The Threepenny Opera. Those politically motivated works balanced a modernist sound-world (not Schoenbergian!) with music of a more popular bent, including jazz and ragtime. In New York he realised that the Broadway musical was where “it was at”. He composed the score for several Broadway shows. Lady in the Dark and One Touch of Venus were the most successful.

The liner notes – most helpful in the preparation of this review – say that the songs are not ordered chronologically or by opera/musical. They are arranged into what the artists consider a good recital. This may not be entirely beneficial, especially because the track listing gives no dates and no sources. To be fair, most of this detail appears in the essay. I have assembled it all into the list placed at the bottom of the review. The booklet only contains the texts of nine German songs with English translations, and one English with a German translation; copyright trouble prevented the inclusion of the other songs. In the review, I refer to the songs by their English titles; for the German titles and the composition dates, see the list at the end.

Old favourites are heard here. First off, the gritty Mack the Knife from The Threepenny Opera. It has been translated many times, and recorded by a wide range of artists, including Bobby Darin and Louis Armstrong. Most often, one hears Marc Blitzstein’s adaptation, which omits the last two verses about rape and arson, but Aylish Kerrigan sings the original version. Pirate-Jenny is a marvellous fantasy by a drudge who works in a “crummy old hotel” (Wikipedia). She imagines getting her revenge by teaming up with several pirates to slaughter the roadhouse’s customers.

There are three well-known numbers from the less than successful Happy End. In the Bilbao Song,a drunken customer reminisces in a bar. Surabaya Johnny is sung by a woman who cannot live with her lover, nor can she live without him, as he goes back to a life of crime. In the third, The Song of the Big Shot, a gangster is giving a lecture on being tough.

The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny may be interpreted as a critique of the American society, or it could be a comment on the perceived decadence of the Weimar Republic. Alabama Song is sung by the character Jenny Smith as she leaves her home in search of dollars, whiskey and men. You’ve made your bed… is clearly tongue-in-cheek. The liner notes explain that it is a “caricature of a capitalist consumer’s paradise”.

The earliest song here is Berlin in the Light, which Weill wrote for the Berlin Festival of Lights. This is a paean to the city as it emerged from the deprivations of the Great War. It celebrates technical and artistic progress.Another early song is Wayside Shrine from Weill’s Berliner Requiem. As the Wikipedia says, Brecht’s libretto was designed to point up the “faceless war casualties, or victims of violent crime whose bodies are disposed of in an undetected location”.

I am less familiar with the songs from Weill’s American musical days, but I have found superb numbers here, and one or two favourites. Knickerbocker Holiday was set in the early days of Manhattan. The hero, Pieter Stuyvesant, sang the incomparable September Song. The Broadway hit Lady in the Dark was a “psychoanalytic” drama with Ira Gershwin’s libretto. The story follows fashion designer Liza Elliot and three men who court her. Two of its best-known songs are One Life to Live and My Ship. The latter looks back on Liza’s life and her childhood dreams of true love. The former tries to rationalise her panic attacks and depression.

The plot of One Touch of Venus, with a book by Ogden Nash, is a satire on “contemporary American suburban values, artistic fads and romantic and sexual mores”, as the Wikipedia would have it. It involves a statue of the goddess which comes to life but is disillusioned by the prospect of being a stay-at-home spouse. The best-known is the beautiful Speak Low. Equally attractive is the jubilant I’m a stranger here myself, where Venus considers the mysteries of love. In Foolish Heart, she ponders on how difficult it is to get her man.

Street Scene explores the relationships between various residents of a New York tenement building during an exceptional heat wave. The song Lonely House “explores the existential loneliness of life in the big city, a theme Weill was well acquainted with, having lived in Berlin, Paris and New York”.

The theme of Love Life is a novelty: a married couple who do not age. The story begins in 1791, and presents their trials and tribulations as they try to come to terms with massive social change. As the notes explain, the song Is it Him or Is it Me explores the question of relationship deterioration.

The most recent number is Trouble Man from Lost in the Stars, a tragedy based on Alan Paton’s novel Cry, the Beloved Country.

Here is what the singer’s Web site tells us: “Prof. Dr. Aylish E. Kerrigan, mezzo-soprano and practice-based music researcher, was born in San Francisco of Irish parents and lives in Germany. Her repertoire ranges from Irish Ballads, German Lieder and Theatre Music to a wide range of contemporary compositions. She is a renowned vocal pedagogue and gives concerts, master classes and lectures world-wide.” Her recordings include The Dream Bridge (songs by Charles Ives and Henry Cowell – review), and I am Wind on Sea (contemporary vocal music from Ireland – review).

My introduction to this deeply felt vocal music was the Lotte Lenya Album on Columbia Masterworks (MG 30087) issued in 1970. It was conveniently divided into two records: Lotte Lenya Sings Berlin Theater Songs of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya Sings American Theater Songs of Kurt Weill. For me, rightly or wrongly, these performances will never be bettered, but life and times move on. Other artists assume the challenge of singing and interpreting Weill’s music.

Sadly, I did not warm to mezzo-soprano Aylish Kerrigan’s voice. I have suggested before that I sometimes feel I am listening to more than one singer, depending on the part of her range she is singing in. That said, she does bring much to these songs. At times there is a great depth of beauty, and an overall sense of understanding of her repertoire. My reservations about her voice aside, I expect that many listeners will be impressed by Aylish Kerrigan’s sympathetic performances.

John France

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Contents
Die Moritat von Mackie Messer
Berlin im Licht
Barbara-Song
Marterl: Hier ruht die Jungfrau
Seeräuber-Jenny
Denn wie man sich bettet
Alabama Song
Bilbao-Song
Das Lied von der harten Nuss
Surabaya Johnny
September Song
Foolish heart
One life to live
Is it him or is it me?
Speak low
Trouble man
Lonely house
My ship
I’m a stranger here myself

Contents by opera/musical and date
Berlin Festival of Lights (1928)
Berlin im Licht (Berlin in the Light)
Das Berliner Requiem (1928)
Marterl: Hier ruht die Jungfrau (Wayside Shrine – Here rests the young lady Johanna Beck)
Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera) (1928)Barbara-Song
Die Moritat von Mackie Messer (Street Ballad of Mack the Knife)
Seeräuber-Jenny (Sea Pirate Jenny)
Happy End (1929)
Bilbao-Song
Das Lied von der harten Nuss (Song of the Big Shot)
Surabaya Johnny
Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny) (1930)Alabama Song
Denn wie man sich bettet (You’ve made your bed…)
Knickerbocker Holiday (1938)September Song
Lady in the Dark (1941)My Ship
One Life to Live
One Touch of Venus (1943)Foolish Heart
I’m a stranger here myself
Speak Low
Street Scene (1947)Lonely House
Love Life (1948)
Is it him or is it me?
Lost in the Stars (1949)
Trouble Man