Weill, K: Concerto for Violin & Wind Orchestra, Op. 12

The year 1933 marks a clear divide in the life and music of Kurt Weill (1900-1950). This was the year in which he fled Nazi Germany for the USA and this move brought about a stylistic shift in his outlook and music. The works on the first disc here are from his early years in Germany: the First Symphony and the Violin Concerto date from 1921 and 1925 respectively and the Second Symphony, his last purely orchestral work, was completed in 1934. Once settled in the States Weill took up studies in American popular song and stage music and soon began a highly successful career as a writer of many Broadway shows and Hollywood films. The second of these discs contains some fine examples of Weill's work on Broadway. He became an American citizen in 1943 and died of a heart attack just a few weeks after his 50th birthday. He was twice married to Lotte Lenya who, after his death, devoted a great deal of her time to promoting and performing Weill's music.

Kurt Weill was born in Dessau in 1900 and studied at the Berlin Musihhochschule with Humperdinck and then later and privately with Busoni. He was also one of a number of composers who had to flee Germany once the Nazis started to carry out their atrocities, indeed Weill had more than most to fear as not only was he a Jew but he had collaborated with Berthold Brecht in works some of which had lampooned the Nazis and their leader and cronies. His career may therefore be split between his mother country which he left in 1933 and America where he settled in 1935 and died in 1950. The earliest work in this collection is the Concerto for violin and wind orchestra written in 1924 and is clearly influenced by his study of atonality developed by Schoenberg. Three years later he became Brecht’s composer and together they produced Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera) in 1928, Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (Rise and Fall of the City Mahagonny) in 1930 – the Suite prepared by his champion, Wilhelm Brückner-Rüggeberg, is included in this set – and Die sieben Todsünden (The Seven Deadly Sins) in 1933 which also is included. The same year he also wrote his second symphony.

Once in America he became a leading composer of Broadway Musicals and extracts from two of them complete the collection. One of his main performers was his wife, Lotte Lenya, whose characteristic voice made many of his songs standards of the popular song repertory; she was also a character actress, who could forget her as the villainous Rosa Klebb, with the spike in her shoe, in the James Bond film: From Russia with Love?

The wind band offers considerable variety and color to composers, as demonstrated by these three disparate works. Jennifer Higdon’s Soprano Saxophone Concerto brings to the instrument an unerring warmth and sizzling dexterity perfectly suited to its plangent beauty. Kurt Weill’s 1924 Violin Concerto exudes neo-classicism, Mahlerian influence and a pungent dynamism that account for its popularity. Chen Yi’s Dragon Rhyme employs musical intervals familiar from Beijing Opera, in a work rich in textual color and vivid intensity.

Sono Luminus, together with the Baton Rouge Symphony Chamber Players, brings together the works of three contemporary composers in this latest release, Weill - Ibert - Berg.

The son of a cantor, Kurt Weill was born in Dessau into a family that took in operatic performances as a main form of entertainment. When Weill was in his teens the director of the Dessau Hoftheater, Albert Bing, encouraged him in the study of music. Weill briefly studied composition with Engelbert Humperdinck and was already working professionally as a conductor when he attended composer Ferruccio Busoni’s master classes in Berlin. Delighted to see the positive responses of an audience to his first collaboration with playwright Georg Kaiser, Der Protagonist (1926), he thereafter resolved to work toward accessibility in his music. French composer Jacques Ibert was born in Paris August 15, 1890. His father was a financier, his mother an accomplished pianist. She began his musical training when he was four years old, and despite his father’s objection, continued to encourage his ambition to become a musician. Upon returning from his wartime duties in the French Navy during World War I, he resumed his conservatory training, and in 1919 won the Prix de Rome for his cantata Le Poete et la Fee. His navy service in the Mediterranean gave rise to his arguably most famous composition, the 1924 symphonic suite Ports of Call (Escales). He continued to compose for virtually every genre, including seven operas, six symphonic works and five ballets, three choral works, plus scores of incidental pieces, songs, concertos, and scores for films.

Alban Maria Johannes Berg is one of the central figures of twentieth century musical composition. As one of the triumvirate of the Second Viennese School, Berg produced a rather small body of work that is nonetheless distinguished by a strongly Romantic aesthetic and a distinctive dramatic sense.

The Baton Rouge Symphony Chamber Players is a collection of talented artists taken from the larger parent group, the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra. Celebrating its 63rd year, the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra has become an ambassador for the arts in the greater Baton Rouge region and neighboring communities. The BRSO currently offers over 40 concerts a year, bringing in internationally-known guest artists and offering a broad range of programs to the people of the area.