Weill, K: The Threepenny Opera: excerpts

From 1928 to 1932 many recordings of songs from the Threepenny Opera were released on 20 different labels. Here we have a representative selection. Also included are recordings dating from 1928-1930 of the original cast at the Schiffbauerdamm. Most are reissued complete for the first time. Also included are rare performances by Lenya and Weill.

This collection includes the famous Berlin recordings with Lotte Lenya from 1929-1944. It includes songs from Die Dreigroschenoper, Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahogany, Happy End and Der Silbersee as well as other songs. Including accompaniments played by Weill himself, this will be of interest to collectors.

Remastered from the original analogue tapes

With The Threepenny Opera, Bert Brecht and Kurt Weill created the greatest musical success of the 1920s in Germany. The premiere performance on 28 August 1928 at Berlin’s Schiffbauerdamm Theatre marked the start of the work’s triumphal procession a work that is still thrilling the masses to this very day.

The dramatic work is based on an opera persiflage and period satire that Brecht brought forward into the 20th century, into the so-called “milieu”.

This recording is one of the most famous productions ever made of the Dreigroschenoper. Despite being an original recording from 1930, the sound quality has been brought up to today’s standards.

"…A comprehensive journey through different genres of music, from the earliest forms of classical music through to the latest forms of light music, including swing and Klezmer. Everything is done in such a masterly, noble and cheerful fashion, that you simply cannot get enough of it…" There is no better way to describe the music making of the group Interclarinet than Gerhard Pätzig’s write-up of their first CD in the German magazine Klassic Heute (Classic Today).

The musicians who make up Interclarinet first met in the summer of 1998 in the USA, on the occasion of the International Clarinet Association Congress in Columbus/Ohio. The performers enjoyed their rehearsals and concerts so much that they decided to work together on a permanent basis. What a stroke of luck to have Józef Balogh as composer, arranger and stylistically accurate improviser in the group. His compositions for our ensemble have been published in a special Interclarinet edition by the Windland Foundation in Budapest. We got a lot of fun and artistic encouragement from our first CD production with the unbelievably competent team at FARAO classics in Munich.

Listeners have deemed our performances unconventional, enjoyable, perfect and attention-grabbing.

Whether they are giving concerts in important capital cities, holding master classes for the German branch of the internationally operational Jeunesses Musicales, giving clarinet lessons for all and sundry up in the mountain pastures of Grossramming in Austria, or workshops in Budapest, Interclarinet feel at home just about anywhere." (interclarinet)

Historic recordings of selections from the Weill-Brecht classic, as well as selections from two of their other collaborations, Mahogonny and Happy End. Performances by Lotte Lenya, Bertold Brecht, Otto Klemperer, members of the original productions, etc.