Weill – The Seven deadly Sins

Originally written for Classical Source. Read original article HERE.

Despite the best efforts of various record labels, outside of The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, The Threepenny Opera and the Little Threepenny Music, Kurt Weill’s music remains largely unknown. These concert performances open with the nine movement ballet The Seven Deadly Sins, where the Sins are flanked by a Prologue and Epilogue; which in Berthold Brecht’s hands is a biting critique of American materialism, whose main character Anna has two sides to her personality, one mercenary, the other idealistic, whose family (the mother is sung by a bass!) having sent her away to earn enough money to build them a house in Louisiana, act as a hypocritical, moralising chorus.

There are various ways of singing Anna. Lotte Lenya with Brückner-Rüggeberg makes extensive use of sprechgesang, Brigitte Fassbaender with Garben is more operatic, while Julia Migenes with Tilson Thomas falls somewhere between the two. The family are usually opera singers. The work’s style might be described as neo-classical Weimar sleaze, which Rattle and the LSO relish, imbuing the Prologue and Epilogue with melancholy and more than anyone else they make the parody of the Act II, Die Fledermaus Waltz swing. In her more operatic way Kozena effectively delineates the two Annas and the four soloists enjoy themselves as the chorus.    

Death in the Forest is a sombre reflection on a savage Mississippi murder for baritone and wind, which, as you might expect from one of the world’s greatest singers, Florian Boesch brings to vivid life, supported by baleful brass. Lonely House from Act 1 of Street Scene is sensitively sung by Andrew Staples and James Bond fans might like to know that the foreboding opening string motif bears a more than passing resemblance to a similar device in John Barry’s use of his Bond theme in Doctor No.

The two Walt Whitman settings are less successful because Ian Bostridge (Warner) out-sings his counterparts and in Antonio Pappano’s hands the original piano settings, where Beat! Beat! Drums! is much slower, have more emotional impact.

The Little Threepenny Music, which contains new material as well as borrowings from the opera, is scored for wind band, percussion, banjo, piano and accordion. All of the familiar tunes are here including a decidedly upbeat Mack the Knife. Rattle points the rhythms, clarifies textures and while his tempi are forward moving, gives his players time to characterise their solos. Others, such as Tilson Thomas, also with the LSO (Sony), have a lighter, smoother touch, but unlike Rattle they underplay the sleaze.

Sound-wise, a DSD512 download was used, which is the nearest you can get to being there and actually makes the notorious Barbican acoustic sound acceptable.