Kurt Weill & INTERFICTIONS

[ellenkushner]

We saw LoveMusik last night, a show about the life/romance/artistic partnership of Kurt Weill & Lotte Lenya, done as a sort-of musical using entirely songs [complete list & some sound here] written by Weill (and lyricists ranging from Bertolt Brecht [in Berlin] to Ira Gershwin & Ogden Nash(!) [in NYC]) between 1920-1950. I have to agree with all the critics that it was an ambitious failure, but I would have hated to miss it, being such a fan of theirs. ( Threepenny Opera was definitely a strong influence on Swordspoint &tc.)

I just read a piece in this week's Village Voice that may explain why: Weill's an interstitial composer! Michael Feingold writes:
'People in both the classical and music-theater worlds simply dislike his sound. This is nothing new; from the earliest days of his Berlin success, Weill's music has put off listeners who found his transgressive habit of crossing boundary lines an irritant. Though always grounded in classical form, Weill wasn't "classical"; he used modernist tactics like polytonality, but he wasn't conventionally "modern." He wrote operetta-like melodies, employed jazz rhythms and "blue" notes, ventured into pop idioms, but he wasn't writing operetta, or jazz, or pop. He was writing Weill's music and nobody else's.'
(Italics mine, because that is almost exactly the language we use when trying to describe justabout any art that's interstitial!)

Speaking of all of which - INTERFICTIONS, the first ever anthology of interstitial fiction, has been getting some amazing reviews. They're all up at the INTERFICTIONS blog, along with some other interesting stuff by the various contributors. Check back there often to see what's new - and if you've written a review or even blogged us, please let me know. Feel free to comment there, too.

Comments

[rozk.livejournal.com]

That makes total sense; it also explains why I am so utterly in love with his music. Even when he writes symphonies and string quartets, they are as utterly Kurt Weill as the songs.

I also love him for the way he just accepted how his relationship with Lenya worked - she would disappear for a while sometimes, as she did with Tilly Losch, and he would wait and in due course she would come home for a while. He even wrote Seven Deadly Sins for her and Losch, because he was a genuinely nice guy without a jealous bone in his body...

Unfortunately, the book of their letters is edited by Lenya's executor who for some reason wants to make out that Lenya was utterly and totally heterosexual. This is like writing a book on cosmology from the Flat Earth point of view.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Well, of course, you!

And thanks for the hot tip on Lenya & Losch. Why am I not surprised?

[ellen-denham.livejournal.com]

I'm a classically trained singer and I absolutely adore Kurt Weill. I'm hoping to direct a production of Mahagonny Songspiel at some point in the not too distant future (I have most of the practical stuff lined up, it is just finding the time).

I have an LP of Lenya singing Weill that I haven't listened to in a while that I'm going to have to pull out now. :)

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Let's sing at Mythcon!

[ellen-denham.livejournal.com]

Yes, lets! I'll bring a few songbooks.

[vschanoes.livejournal.com]

Just to let you know, my mother's accordian teacher runs an all-woman (except for him) accordian orchestra that performs Kurt Weill music.

OK. I love my life, my mother, and my city for making it possible to write that sentence!

[vschanoes.livejournal.com]

And here's a link to an article about him. I think the orchestra might be interstitial, what do you think?

[vschanoes.livejournal.com]

Um. And when I wrote "here's a link," what I mean was here's a link." And here's a link to a list of their upcoming shows, which includes one that's gonna be all Kurt Weill!

[bethynyc.livejournal.com]

::waves::

Hi! Met you at the Books of Wonder signing, and added you! Thanks for being there and reading your story!

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Such a pleasure!

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Off-topic, but you will have seen - I hope! - that TPotS is longlisted for the British Fantasy Society award for Best Novel?

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Eeeep!!!

I got an invite to a party in London that seemed to imply as much, but I wasn't sure what was really going on. They also suggested that I go onto the BFS Discussion Board to, ah, encourage people's interest by talking about the book, but so far I have been unable to figure out a non-disgusting way of doing that. Any thoughts?

I can't imagine enough people have read it to make it a possible contender even for the shortlist, though of course I would be delighted. It *is* coming out in mass market paperback in a couple of weeks, which would make it less costly to import....

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I got an invite to a party in London that seemed to imply as much, but I wasn't sure what was really going on. They also suggested that I go onto the BFS Discussion Board to, ah, encourage people's interest by talking about the book, but so far I have been unable to figure out a non-disgusting way of doing that. Any thoughts?

I have exactly the same quandary, for my own 'Bridge of Dreams'. I don't like canvassing for votes, I hate tacky self-promotion - and yet, and yet...

Hmm. I could talk about yours, you could talk about mine...?

I can't imagine enough people have read it to make it a possible contender even for the shortlist, though of course I would be delighted. It *is* coming out in mass market paperback in a couple of weeks, which would make it less costly to import....

The way the system works, there is no genuine shortlisting; people vote now on the longlist, and those votes decide the winner. (Sometimes they announce a pseudo-shortlist, the top five or six, just to stimulate interest, but it has no other effect except to depress everybody else on the longlist.)

In these blessed days of Amazon, import costs are no longer an issue; we can buy US books for perfectly reasonable prices. Which is why I have TPotS on order right now, yay...

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

You are so reasonable! And encouraging! And I give up: I have turned this over to the Teeming Masses. It's in their hands now.

I love reading your blog, btw - I hope we can get together in the same kitchen on the same continent sometime....

[desperance.livejournal.com]

You are so reasonable! And encouraging! And I give up: I have turned this over to the Teeming Masses. It's in their hands now.

Hee - that's no way to speak of Delia... (No, but seriously, it'll be interesting to see if anyone picks that up & runs with it. The book has so many fans - congrats on the Locus award, by the way! - it's to be hoped that someone will.)

I hope we can get together in the same kitchen on the same continent sometime...

Wouldn't that be nice? Damn these oceans, always getting in the way...