Gay Songs

Kurt Weill / Bertolt Brecht - Die Dreigroschenoper / Songs & Chansons - The Original 1930 Recordings
Marlene Dietrich - Lotte Lenya - Kurt Gerron - Erich Ponto
EAC+LOG+CUE | FLAC: 127 MB | Full Artwork | 5% Recovery Info
Label/Cat#: Teldec # 9031-72025-2 | Country/Year: Germany 1990, 1931
Genre: Classical, Pop | Style: Early 20th Century, Opera, Chanson

…The Threepenny Opera was first performed at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin in 1928. Despite an initially poor reception, it became a great success, playing 400 times in the next two years. The performance was a springboard for one of the best known interpreters of Brecht and Weill's work, Lotte Lenya, who was married to Weill…

This unabashedly eclectic album features stirring and varied songs by American composer Ben Moore, written over a period of some 30 years and ranging from modern art song to musical theater and cabaret. The texts span some 2,600 years from the ancient poet Sappho to contemporary lyrics. Conceived early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Gathering is united by its message of hope in troubled times and hope for a brighter future.

Ye tuneful Muses was written in 1686, most probably to celebrate the return of the Court from Windsor to Whitehall on 1 October. As the birthday of King James II fell on 14 October some scholars have suggested it is possible that the celebrations were combined, for the diarist Luttrell recorded that the birthday was ‘observed with great solemnity … the day concluded with ringing of bells, bonefires and a ball at Court’, but there is little in the text to suggest this was so. That anonymous author did however provide Purcell with a good libretto, full of variety and vivid material for compositional inspiration, especially in its references to music and musical instruments and, as ever, Purcell did not fail.

Recorder player Mutsuyuki Motomura's latest album is titled "Portraits in French Baroque Sonatas". Spreading the wings is to spread the wings of an insect, etc., so that it can be used as a specimen. The "Sonata", which has a taste for France and Italy, is programmed like a beautiful picture with small pieces of personality mixed in.

Trumpeter Lucienne Renaudin Vary makes a musical transatlantic crossing with her second album for Warner Classics. Mademoiselle in New York majors on American and French composers and songwriters – Bernstein, Gershwin, Ravel and Aznavour among them – featuring music from West Side Story, An American in Paris and Candide. Lucienne is joined by the BBC Concert Orchestra and Tony Award-winning music director Bill Elliott, and, in Bobby Hebb’s song ‘Sunny’, by her brothers Philémon (on double bass) and Bartholomé (on guitar). As Lucienne says, “It’s a number that’s full of sun, light and hope.”

Over 175 hours of music, featuring recordings by over 250 of the greatest Beethoven performers, ranging from Karl Böhm to Alfred Brendel, Claudio Arrau to the Amadeus Quartet, Wilhelm Furtwängler to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Emil Gilels to John Eliot Gardiner, Wilhelm Kempff to Herbert von Karajan, Yehudi Menuhin to Anne-Sophie Mutter, and Murray Perahia to Maurizio Pollini. Includes more than two hours of newly recorded music including several world premieres with Lang Lang, Daniel Hope and Tobias Koch. Over 30 discs of alternative recordings including historic performances and period instrument recordings. Limited & Numbered Edition.