Kurt Weill - Berliner Requiem; Vom Tod in Wald; Violinkonzert

Kurt WEILL (1900-1950)

Berliner Requiem

Vom Tod in Wald;

Violinkonzert

Texts Bertolt Brecht

Elisabeth Glab  (violin)

Peter Kooy (bass)

Alexandre Laiter (tenor)

Ensemble Musique Oblique

Ensemble Vocal Europeén de la Chapelle Royale

Philippe Herreweghe

This is rather unusual; Baroque expert and advocate of French music and Johann Sebastian Bach's cantatas Philippe Herreweghe takes up the cause of Kurt Weill's early, neglected concert works. Weill is among a small number of twentieth century composers that Herreweghe conducts from time to time, Stravinsky and Schoenberg being the other main ones. When Herreweghe recorded Harmonia Mundi's Kurt Weill: Berliner Requiem at IRCAM in 1992, all of these pieces were still relatively rare on recordings; this Musique d'abord incarnation is the third time Harmonia Mundi has released it. While the field is not yet crowded, the competition is stiffer than in 1992, as interest in Weill's lone Violin Concerto has picked up considerably in the meantime. Berliner Requiem, in its complete form, exists on at least four recordings and Vom Tod in Wald in two others by July 2007. On the BIS disc The Singing Apes, the Swedish choral group Orphei Drängar has recorded the Berliner Requiem in a version that is clearly superior in terms of pace and timing; the "Ballade vom ertrunken Mädchen" is not nearly as rushed as it is here. As it is an anomaly in Weill's catalog anyway, Vom Tod in Wald is not a work of the quality whereby such distinctions matter much unless it is a particularly poor performance, so that leaves the Concerto for violin and wind band, Op. 12, as the most likely contender for continued relevance. Both Herreweghe and his violin soloist Elisabeth Glab emphasize coolness, crispness, and distance over most other factors in this neo-classical concerto, written as Weill was leaving the nest from Busoni's master class and first coming into contact with the music of Stravinsky. By comparison, Anthony Marwood's recording of this concerto for Hyperion with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields seems a little lighter, jazzier, and generally more idiomatic to Weimar period Weill. Herreweghe knows where all the notes are, puts them in the right places, and in the main, these are very proficient interpretations. However, it represents Weill at his most cool and objective, again a somewhat surprising result from a conductor who is able to draw so much warmth from Bach and Rameau.