We know Kurt Weill as a theater composer, whether or not in collaboration with
Bertolt Brecht. Weill felt, however, that his music also belonged outside the theater. At least that is what he wrote in the program notes for the premiere of his Fantaisie Symphonique (1934), which took place in the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, no less. It is not surprising that in this symphony we sometimes hear allusions
… to Die Sieben Todsünden. That sung ballet (to texts by Brecht) had been premiered in Paris the previous year. The Fantaisie Symphonique was Weill's second symphony. He had completed his first more than a decade before. In 1933, however, Weill had been forced to flee from Berlin to Paris. The score of the First Symphony also somehow escaped the Nazis, eventually ending up in an Italian convent. In 1955, Weill's widow Lotte Lenya managed to retrieve the composition after placing an advertisement. So Weill had already died when the symphony first sounded in 1958. (HJ)more
