Kurt Julian Weill was born in Dessau on March 2, 1900. He was the third of four children of Emma Ackermann and Albert Weill, cantor in the synagogue of Dessau (from 1899 to 1919) and composer, mainly of liturgical music.<\/p>\n
His first composition essays go back to 1913. From 1915 to 1918, he took piano lessons, as well as harmony, composition and orchestration with Albert Bing, chief assistant in the Theatre of Dessau\u2019s court. In 1918, he started to study music at the graduate school (Hochschule) of Berlin. In December 1920, Kurt Weill entered the class of the composer and pianist Busoni, at the Arts Academy of Berlin. He became quickly one of the brightest and most radical students.<\/p>\n
Kurt Weill approached his opera projects in 1925 by relying on the revalorisation of the music\u2019s role in theatre, on the notion of Spiel (play). His first collaboration with Bertolt Brecht in 1927 (The Threepenny Opera<\/em>) was essential for his future work. Engaged in a communist ideal, this encounter changed his way of writing. He said that he wanted to be the \u00ab Verdi of the poor \u00bb and led his avant-garde expressionist style towards realism. He thus created a new form of popular entertainment : half-way between theatre and opera, his music borrowed from jazz and to cabaret. In 1933, the Jewish origins of Kurt Weill forced him to flee France. On November 26, 1933, during a concert at the Pleyel Hall where excerpts from Der Silbersee<\/em> were performed, the composer Florent Schmitt screamed \u00ab Long live Hitler ! \u00bb, supported by a part of the audience. Parisian newspapers went after Kurt Weill, in particular Lucien Rebatet who denounced the \u00ab Judeo-German virus \u00bb in his newspaper \u00ab Action fran\u00e7aise \u00bb.<\/p>\n In September 1935, he left for the USA. A major work of the early years of exile was Der Weg des Verheissung<\/em>\/The Eternal Road<\/em>, a biblical piece, which presented the history of the Jewish people. A mixture of theatre, liturgy and opera. Kurt Weill then had successes on Broadway, in particular with Lady in the Dark<\/em> and One Touch of Venus<\/em>. From October 1941 on, he participated to the war effort by joining the organisation Fight For Freedom<\/em> ; he gave a civilian service as an air observer in 1942. He also created several works linked to the situation, in particular We Will Never Die<\/em>, performed in New York and Los Angeles and broadcast over the radio. In 1943, he obtained American citizenship, something he had asked for since 1937.<\/p>\n The most remarkable works of Weill\u2019s last creative time were the American opera Street Scene<\/em>, which showed an interesting synthesis between European opera and American musical, and the musical tragedy Lost in the Stars<\/em>, on the theme of the South African apartheid, with a certain African influence permeating the music. His contemporary, the composer Jean Wiener said about him: “What is unique and remarkable in Weill\u2019s music is that he knew how to write for everyone… but not like everyone does… “<\/p>\n *Biography written by Herv\u00e9 Roten inspired by articles about Kurt Weill from France Musique<\/a>, Musicologie.org<\/a> et Wikip\u00e9dia<\/a>.<\/p>\n Biography, discography and catalogue of Kurt Weill\u2019s works<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n
A pivotal moment for the composer came when he worked with the Austrian soprano Lotte Lenya, who became his muse and preferred performer. Inseparable, the two got married and the couple became a legend.<\/p>\n
Kurt Weill died of a heart attack on April 3, 1950 in New York, while he was working on the musical Huckleberry Finn<\/em>, from Mark Twain\u2019s book.<\/p>\n