The Songbirds Archives

This new CD is part of the excellent Columbia Masterworks Heritage Vocal Series (see website link below). A 1997 release in the same series, entitled Lotte Lenya Sings Kurt Weill’s ‘The Seven Deadly Sins’ and Berlin Theatre Songs, featured Weill compositions from his major German theater works of the late 1920s and early 1930s. The present recording, in contrast, features, with a few exceptions, Weill’s work for the Broadway stage from the late 1930s up to his death in 1950. It collects selections from three previously-released Columbia LPs, along with a couple of tracks that have never been released anywhere. All the selections save two are sung in English.

Of the three source LPs, the main one is ‘September Song’ and Other American Theatre Songs of Kurt Weill, first released in 1958 on Columbia Masterworks. This album was originally recorded (in New York, July and August, 1957) in both stereo and mono, but was issued in the mono version only. Thus this represents the first time that these tracks have ever been released in stereo format, as well as the first appearance of one hitherto unreleased song from the sessions: Song of Ruth, from The Eternal Road.

Besides Song of Ruth, the other tracks include September Song and It Never Was You, from Knickerbocker Holiday; The Saga of Jenny, from Lady in the Dark; Foolish Heart and Speak Low, from One Touch of Venus; Sing Me Not a Ballad, from The Firebrand of Florence; Lonely House and A Boy Like You, from Street Scene; Green Up Time, from Love Life; and Trouble Man, Stay Well, and the title song from Lost in the Stars.

Also included here are three selections taken from the original cast recording of the off-Broadway show Brecht on Brecht (1962): The Solomon Song, from The Threepenny Opera; Song, from Mother Courage (in German); and Song of a German Mother. The latter two, both musical settings of poems by Brecht, are something of an anomaly here since Weill had nothing to do with the music; these were composed by Paul Dessau and Hanns Eisler, both longtime Brecht collaborators. They are, presumably, included here under the rubric of American Theatre Songs.

In addition, four selections from the original Broadway cast recording of the Kander-Ebb Cabaret (1967), which of course Lenya notably appeared in, turn up here. These are So What?, What Would You Do?, It Couldn't Please Me More (A Pineapple), and Married, the last two with Jack Gilford.

Last, although hardly least, the CD includes three versions of Lenya singing Mack the Knife, although the word "version" doesn't do justice to the third, which is an eight-minute transcription of the studio takes of Lenya's duet with Louis Armstrong. The first of the three versions is sung by Lenya in German, accompanied by the Turk Murphy jazz band. Notwithstanding its abrupt coda, this great recording has, to my knowledge, never been released. The second Mack the Knife version is the final take of the Lenya-Armstrong duet. And the third, as noted, are the session takes, including Armstrong’s attempts to instruct Lenya how to get the rhythms right, especially on the final three eighth notes, which she never quite manages. It's a delightful and fascinating look at the great Lenya being instructed in how to sing American jazz by the equally great Louis Armstrong, who is in complete and total control of the session.

While many of these tunes have, of course, been covered admirably, perhaps definitively, by others – June Christy's Lonely House, Judy Garland's It Never Was You, Sarah Vaughan's Speak Low, Lena Horne's My Ship – Lenya's interpretations remain inimitably, and uniquely, hers alone.

With this CD in hand, plus its 1997 German-language companion volume, the listener has a well-rounded, though by no means complete, representation of Lenya's post-1950 readings of work by her first and second husbands. (She married Weill twice.) Lenya and Weill are, of course, one of the great marriages of the century, musically as well as personally. After Weill's death, she devoted much of her life to promoting and interpreting his music. This CD is an excellent record of that devotion, especially the American phase of it, and with Weill's centenary coming up next year, a timely one as well.

Columbia Masterworks Heritage series

Kurt Weill Foundation for Music