Kurt Julian Weill (March 2, 1900 – April 3, 1950) was aGerman composer who later became anAmerican. Although he was trained as a composer ofclassical music he wrote many songs in a popular, jazzy style. He is particularly remembered for the music he wrote for the plays of the GermandramatistBertolt Brecht, as well as formusicals he wrote when he lived in New York. He also wrotesymphonies andchamber music, especially during his early career.
Kurt Weill grew up in a religiousJewish family. During his teens he started to get experience working in a theatre in Dessau, where he learned a lot from the theatreconductor Albert Bing. When he was 20 he went to study at theBerlin Musikhochschule where he studied with the composerHumperdinck. He did not like it there, and soon started a three-year period studying with the composerBusoni. Busoni was a good teacher for him and encouraged him to studycounterpoint carefully in order to be a good composer. Then he introduced Weill to the musicpublishers Universal, who published all his music for the next ten years.
In 1924, Busoni died. Weill started to work with the playwrightGeorg Kaiser who wrote plays in anExpressionistic style. Together they wrote anoperaDer Protagonist (1926) which made Weill famous. The next year he worked with Bertolt Brecht. Together they wrote five songs which soon developed in a "Songspiel" under the titleMahagonny. Between 1927 and 1929, Brecht and Weill wrote a new piece, an opera calledAufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny (Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny), in which five songs from the "Songspiel" were used again.
In 1924, he met thesinger andactressLotte Lenya. Hemarried her in 1926,divorced her in 1933 and married her again in 1937.
In 1928, he wrote the music for a play by Brecht which was to become world-famous. It was calledDreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera). It was based on an opera calledThe Beggar's Opera which had been written in 1728 byJohn Gay. TheThreepenny Opera includes a song which became Weill's most famous song, "Mack the Knife". Weill stopped working with Brecht in 1930 because they hadpolitical disagreements. Brecht was becoming more and more interested inCommunism, but Weill did not want to be a “Communist composer”.
In Berlin, Weill taught composition to several young composers. He also gave manyradio broadcasts. By 1929, he was well-known enough as a composer to make his living just from his compositions.
Weill had to flee fromNazi Germany in March 1933. As a famous and popular Jewish composer, he was a target of the Nazi authorities, who criticized and even interfered with performances of his later stage works, such asAufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny,Die Bürgschaft (1932), andDer Silbersee (1933). He went first toParis, where he started a work withJean Cocteau but it was not finished. He wrote one more work with Brecht: the balletThe Seven Deadly Sins. In 1934, he completed hisSymphony No.2, his last purely orchestral work, conducted inAmsterdam and New York byBruno Walter.
In 1935, Weill went to America with his wife Lotte Lenya. The rest of his life he spent writing for the American stage. He became anaturalized citizen of the United States in 1943. He thought most of his compositions in Germany had been destroyed by the Nazis. He never spoke German again except when writing to his parents who had escaped toIsrael.
Weill changed his musical style. He wrote in a popular way, working with writers such asIra Gershwin. He wrote an operaStreet Scene for which he won an award. He took part in political movements, encouraging America to join in the war.
Weill died of aheart illness in New York City in 1950.
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