Lotte Lenya: Six Songs by Kurt Weill, interpreted by Lotte Lenya
Ihr Stil ist ganz persönlich – changierend zwischen kindlicher Sehnsucht und Dramatik, zwischen Naivität und Zynismus – doch stets leidenschaftlich und aufregend.
[Her style is unique – changing between child-like longing and drama, naiveté and cynicism – but always passionate and exciting. (ed. trans.)]
From the accompanying booklet of the record of 1943
This recoding of six songs was made possible by the producer Herbert Borchardt, who opened a new record company in New York in the early 1940s. The composer Kurt Weill already knew him from his time in exile in France and proposed recording a mix of German, French and English songs. The actress Lotte Lenya sang in all three languages, so Surabaya Johnny from the Threepenny Opera, J’attends un navire from the opera Marie Galante, Complainte de la Seine, which Weill had composed while in exile in France, the scoring of the poem Denn wie man sich bettet by Bertolt Brecht, as well as Lost in the Stars and Lover Man. Weill had composed the latter two songs for the never-finished musical Ulysses Africanus.
In Lotte Lenya, Weill found the ideal interpreter for this recording. Weill loved her straightforward singing style and wrote most female parts so that they would correspond to Lenya's timbre. For this recording, Weill rewrote the piano accompaniments to make them sound more American.
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