Weiss Moskau

Dschinghis Khan was a German pop band created in 1979 to compete in the Eurovision Song Contest. The name of the band is the German spelling of Genghis Khan and was chosen to fit the song of the same name written and produced by Ralph Siegel with lyrics by Bernd Meinunger. Appearing at the height of the disco boom and following on the heels of other German-produced bands such as Boney M, Arabesque, and Silver Convention, the band achieved wide popularity throughout the world, especially in Europe, Russia, and Japan, though they went wholly unnoticed in the United States. Their songs invariably were themed on historical figures and exotic cultures and locales. Though the group broke up in the mid-1980s, it has enjoyed a recent resurgence in popularity on the internet due to a video of them peforming their hit song Moskau being discovered.

This recording features a work with a strange coincidence in its compositional process and an astonishing dual authorship. Remarkably, Silvius Leopold Weiss’s Lute Suite SW47 (which he named Suonata) also comes with a violin part that can be played over the top of it, composed by none other than Johann Sebastian Bach. A recent comparison of sources revealed that the harpsichord part in Bach’s Suite for Violin & Harpsichord BWV1025, long considered to be of doubtful attribution, perfectly matches Weiss’s suite. The violin part, meanwhile, was indeed composed entirely by Bach and is an additional melody independent of Weiss’s musical material. It feels almost like a ‘free improvisation’ above the suite and recalls a similar process carried out by Charles Gounod in 1859: his Ave Maria fits over the first Prelude from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier BWV846. The sole exception is the Fantasia movement in Bach’s piece, which is not derived from Weiss’s suite, meaning both the violin and harpsichord parts in it are unique to Bach.

This recording features a work with a strange coincidence in its compositional process and an astonishing dual authorship. Remarkably, Silvius Leopold Weiss’s Lute Suite SW47 (which he named Suonata) also comes with a violin part that can be played over the top of it, composed by none other than Johann Sebastian Bach. A recent comparison of sources revealed that the harpsichord part in Bach’s Suite for Violin & Harpsichord BWV1025, long considered to be of doubtful attribution, perfectly matches Weiss’s suite. The violin part, meanwhile, was indeed composed entirely by Bach and is an additional melody independent of Weiss’s musical material. It feels almost like a ‘free improvisation’ above the suite and recalls a similar process carried out by Charles Gounod in 1859: his Ave Maria fits over the first Prelude from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier BWV846. The sole exception is the Fantasia movement in Bach’s piece, which is not derived from Weiss’s suite, meaning both the violin and harpsichord parts in it are unique to Bach.

Which Chuck E. Weiss do we talk about here? The one who so impressed blues legends Lightnin Hopkins and Willie Dixon as a Denver teenager that they took him out in their road bands? The one who lived in LA's Tropicana Hotel in the 70s alongside Tom Waits and Rickie Lee Jones, ending up namechecked on the classic Waits albums Small Change and Nighthawks at the Diner, and in Rickie Lee Jones hit "Chuck E.'s in Love"? The one who has recorded with Tom Waits, Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Roger Miller, Dr. John, Willie Dixon? Whichever Chuck E. Weiss you choose, he's a legend, and his 2014 album, Red Beans and Weiss, delivers on the big personality. Executive produced by Johnny Depp and Tom Waits, Red Beans and Weiss blends blues, barrelhouse, and bluster into a highly entertaining whole.