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Rating: 
Summary: A Biography that focuses on Weill's enitre career
Review: Too often, scholarly work on Kurt Weill focuses mainly on his German career in the 1920s-- "The Threepenny Opera," "Mahagonny"-- but Weill had a career that extended well into the 1940s as a Broadway composer, and Hirsch's book explores both aspects, although it is clear he's a fan of Weill's later American work.I would recommend this book as a suppliment to Ronald Sanders' biography "The Days Grow Short," the standard of Weill biographies. However, Hirsch has access to different primary sources that Sanders did not have in the 1970s, and therefore can provide a different perspective. There is also a great deal of text devoted to Lotte Lenya, Weill's wife. It has been criticzed that Hirsch's book deemphasizes musical analysis, which is true, but that is not the purpose. Analyse the music yourself or find the writings of Kim Kowalke for musical analysis. I found this book enjoyable and a good supplient to many other Weill biographies on the shelves
Rating:
Summary: A Biography that focuses on Weill's enitre career
Review: Too often, scholarly work on Kurt Weill focuses mainly on his German career in the 1920s-- "The Threepenny Opera," "Mahagonny"-- but Weill had a career that extended well into the 1940s as a Broadway composer, and Hirsch's book explores both aspects, although it is clear he's a fan of Weill's later American work. I would recommend this book as a suppliment to Ronald Sanders' biography "The Days Grow Short," the standard of Weill biographies. However, Hirsch has access to different primary sources that Sanders did not have in the 1970s, and therefore can provide a different perspective. There is also a great deal of text devoted to Lotte Lenya, Weill's wife. It has been criticzed that Hirsch's book deemphasizes musical analysis, which is true, but that is not the purpose. Analyse the music yourself or find the writings of Kim Kowalke for musical analysis. I found this book enjoyable and a good supplient to many other Weill biographies on the shelves
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