Weill: The Seven Deadly Sins

Featuring soloists such as Magdalena Kožená, Andrew Staples and Florian Boesch, this adds to Rattle’s acclaimed series of opera recordings on LSO Live.

Kurt Weill began his career in the early 1920s, after a musical childhood in Dessau and several years of study in Berlin. By the time his first opera, The Protagonist (libretto by Georg Kaiser), was performed in April 1926, he was an established young German composer. He had already decided to devote himself to the musical theatre, and his works with Bertolt Brecht soon made him famous all over Europe.

He fled the new Nazi regime in March 1933 and continued his indefatigable efforts, first in Paris (1933-35), then in the US until his death. Certain common threads tie together his career: a concern for social justice, an aggressive pursuit of highly regarded playwrights and lyricists as collaborators, and the ability to address audience tastes no matter where he found himself. His most important works are the Violin Concerto (1925), The Threepenny Opera (Bertolt Brecht and Elisabeth Hauptmann, 1928), Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (Brecht and Hauptmann, 1930), The Pledge (Caspar Neher, 1932), Der Silbersee (Georg Kaiser, 1933), The Seven Deadly Sins (Brecht, 1933), Lady in the Dark (Moss Hart and Ira Gershwin, 1941), Street scene (Elmer Rice and Langston Hughes, 1947), and Lost in the Stars (Maxwell Anderson, 1949). He died of heart failure in 1950, shortly after beginning work on a musical adaptation of Huckleberry Finn, leaving behind a large catalogue of works and a reputation that continues to grow.

Kurt Weill (1900 – 1950): The Seven Deadly Sins:
1 Weill: The Seven Deadly Sins: I. Prologue03:47
2 Weill: The Seven Deadly Sins: II. Sloth03:50
3 Weill: The Seven Deadly Sins: III. Pride04:44
4 Weill: The Seven Deadly Sins: IV. Wrath04:30
5 Weill: The Seven Deadly Sins: V. Gluttony03:03
6 Weill: The Seven Deadly Sins: VI. Lust05:46
7 Weill: The Seven Deadly Sins: VII. Greed03:15
8 Weill: The Seven Deadly Sins: VIII. Envy05:15
9 Weill: The Seven Deadly Sins: IX. Epilogue01:42
Death in the Forest, Op. 23:
10 Weill: Death in the Forest, Op. 2308:18
Street Scene, Act I:
11 Weill: Street Scene, Act I: Lonely House03:56
Four Walt Whitman Songs:
12 Weill: Four Walt Whitman Songs: No. 1, Beat! Beat! Drums!03:12
13 Weill: Four Walt Whitman Songs: No. 4, Dirge for Two Veterans04:36
Little Threepenny Music:
14 Weill: Little Threepenny Music: I. Overture01:54
15 Weill: Little Threepenny Music: II. The Ballad of Mack the Knife02:12
16 Weill: Little Threepenny Music: III. Instead of…01:55
17 Weill: Little Threepenny Music: IV. Ballad of the Pleasant Life02:43
18 Weill: Little Threepenny Music: V. Polly’s Song02:13
19 Weill: Little Threepenny Music: VI. Tango Ballad02:52
20 Weill: Little Threepenny Music: VII. Cannon Song02:24
21 Weill: Little Threepenny Music: VIII. Threepenny Finale04:21