Wed. 13.November

21:00 Session The Kurt Weill Songbook by Renald Deppe

For this session, Renald Deppe - who previously led a session on the Ornette Coleman Songbook - is taking up the works of a composer who has been largely forgotten. When Kurt Weill died, it seemed as though only a few of his street-ballads -- such as "Mack the Knife" and "Alabama Song" -- would continue to live on. "The world will only discover how great a composer Kurt Weill was little by little -- because he was a far greater musician than most people think today. It'll take years or decades, but one day Kurt Weill will take his rightful place among those aknowledged to have written great music," the dramatist Maxwell Anderson predicted already in 1950. In the meantime, Weill's role as a leading music-theater innovator has been confirmed. His work with such great dramatists as Bertold Brecht, Elmer Rice, and even Ira Gershwin, resulted in major stage successes already during the Weimarer Republic ("The Threepenny Opera", "Seven Deadly Sins", "Rise and Fall of Mahagony" and the "Jasager", or "Yes Man"). Later on in New York, to which he emigrated in 1935, Weill left his stamp on Broadway ("Johnny Johnson", "One Touch of Venus", "Lady in the Dark", "Lost in the Stars"). Weill died when rock'n'roll was just starting its rise. Nevertheless, his importance for popular music is evident when you consider the lasting impact of such Weill hits as "September Song", "Speak Low" and the above- mentioned "Mack the Knife".

Renald Deppe will rummage around beforehand in the rich stash and pull out the most delectable Weill charts, which will be made available in the P&B wardrobe for "improvisatorial representatives of popular music" (only AKM* knows definitively what they should be called) who are interested in having an encounter with the works of one of this century's great composers. Show me the way to the next Whiskey-Bar!
CH (*The Association of Composers and Musicians. KK)

Admission: ATS 30.-
PORGY & BESS, SPIEGELGASSE 2, 1010 WIEN, TEL: 512 84 38