Clearly a man of the early twentieth century born 100 years too late,
Antony Beaumont has edited the letters of
Gustav Mahler and the diaries of Alma Mahler, written important monographs on the music of Ferruccio Busoni, and conducted and recorded the complete orchestral works of Alexander von Zemlinsky with the Czech Philharmonic. With the release of this 2006 disc,
Beaumont directed his attention to the orchestral works of Kurt Weill.
For even fervent fans of early twentieth century music, it might come as news that Weill actually wrote orchestral music. Best known for The Three Penny Opera and a run of Broadway musicals, Weill in fact turned twice to the most revered and challenging of orchestral forms, the symphony. His First, a single-movement musical-political post-Romantic howl, was written while he was a student of Busoni in Berlin in 1921 and his Second, a three-movement tragic-ironic modernist sneer, was written on the run from Nazi Germany in Paris in 1933-1934. Neither work, however, ever achieved anything like the limited popularity of the orchestral works of Zemlinsky.
This disc could make a difference. Clearly steeped in the spirit of the age and the music,
Beaumont leads Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen in strongly argued, deeply passionate performances that make the works' improbable combinations and impossible juxtapositions as lucid, as incisive, and as compelling as possible. Coupled with Weill's nearly neo-Classical, faintly sarcastic Quodlibet drawn from his music for a children's pantomime and recorded in Chandos' spectacular super audio sound,
Beaumont's performances of Weill's symphonies make an excellent introduction to the works. Next, try Weill's Violin Concerto -- a slyly seductive piece of night music.