Kurt Weill

Biography

Kurt Julian Weill studied music composition with Ferruccio Busoni in the early 1920s. The first work of his performed publicly anywhere was his children’s pantomime, Die Zaubernacht (The Magic Night) performed in November 1922. But Weill’s lasting reputation is based on his collaboration with Bertolt Brecht on The Threepenny Opera in 1928. Theodor Wiesengrund-Adorno described Weill’s compositions for this work thus: “The harmonies, the fatal diminished seventh chords, the chromatic alterations of diatonic melodic steps, the expressivo that expresses nothing, they sound false to us …” That was, surprisingly, intended as praise. These features of the score have to “sound false,” as a way of establishing that something new and dangerous is afoot. Weill died of a heart attack after a half century of life. His wife, Lotte Lenya, lived on until 1981, and her name has become a fixture in English-language versions of the most famous song from The Threepenny Opera, “Mack the Knife.”