Andrew Clements 

Weill and Eisler: Songs, etc – review

Kammer bridges two very different musical worlds, with impressive range and technique, writes Andrew Clements
  
  


There's some historical logic in yoking Kurt Weill and Hanns Eisler together – both were active in Berlin from the late 1920s, until forced to leave by the Nazis, and both worked with Bertolt Brecht – but musically they were very different. Weill had studied with Busoni, while Eisler was a pupil of Schoenberg, and they belonged to different strands of 20th-century modernism. Salome Kammer's polished collection of songs makes that point forcibly: she frames a sequence of Eisler's miniaturised settings with some numbers from Weill's Berlin collaborations with Brecht, and a group from his later Broadway shows. Where Eisler's songwriting seems a natural continuation of the 19th-century Lieder tradition, Weill's approach is more heterogeneous, with roots in cabaret and art songs. Kammer is adroit at bridging both musical worlds; she's a superb singing actress, with the required range and technique.

 

Leave a Comment

Required fields are marked *

*

*