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Kurt Weill & INTERFICTIONS
Jun. 10th, 2007 07:07 pmWe 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.
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.