Kurt Weill - From Berlin to Broadway - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

After his first solo album of music by Marchand and Clérambault, released in 2015 and nominated for a Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik, the harpsichordist Luca Oberti, who has performed on the international scene for years alongside such figures as Marc Minkowski and Christophe Rousset, presents a new album on the theme of Bach's imaginary journey to Italy. Schütz, Froberger, Muffat, Handel, Hasse, Mozart and Wagner are merely the most famous of the many musicians who crossed the Alps to immerse themselves in the world of Italian music and grasp it's atmospheres and it's secrets. Yet the composer who most fully assimilated the Italian style was Johann Sebastian Bach, who never even set foot in Italy. His journey was a virtual one the scores of the Italian masters, which he avidly studied and absorbed from childhood onwards, guided him on an ideal itinerary from Vivaldi's Venice to Frescobaldi's Rome. Beginning with the transcriptions of concertos byVivaldi and Marcello, and continuing with pieces ofItalian inspiration like the Aria Variata alla maniera italiana, the Capriccio sulla lontananza del fratello dilettissimo and the Fantasia and Fugue BWV 904, the journey culminates in the celebrated Italian Concerto.

During the Fifties, American artists from the world of jazz and popular music turned to Kurt Weill and the melodies that came from his music for the theatre, notably the future Broadway hits that he created in the USA. Thanks to those artists, Weill's songs went straight into the Great American Songbook for good, writing a new chapter that erased the Berlin/Brecht imagery usually linked to the German composer of the world-famous Threepenny Opera. This is a compilation of some of Kurt Weill's most popular songs, performed by some of the world's most famous musicians, including Ella Fitzgerald, Abbey Lincoln, Chet Baker, and many others. Album Tracks 1. Lost in the Stars (Abbey Lincoln) 4 10 2. Speak Low (Lena Horne) 3 28 3. Moritat (Sonny Rollins) 10 04 4. September Song (Nat King Cole & G. Shearing) 2 59 5. Mack the Knife (Ella Fitzgerald) 4.46 6. My Ship (Miles Davis) 4 25 7. Moon-Faced and Starry-Eyed (Johnny Mercer) 3 02 8. Speak Low (Billie Holiday) 4 27 9. Mack the Knife (Louis Armstrong) 3 54 10. September Song (Red Norvo Trio) 3 31 11. Speak Low (Anita O Day) 2 35 12. Mack the Knife (Anita O Day) 3 08 13. My Ship (Ernestine Anderson) 3 40 14. September Song (Django Reinhardt) 2 33 15. September Song (Joe Loco) 3 04 16. Speak Low (Henri Salvador) 4 28 17. Moon-Faced and Starry-Eyed (Max Roach) 2 53 18. Speak Low (Max Roach) 2 50 1. Speak Low (Booker Ervin) 6 59 2. Mack the Knife (Erroll Garner) 4 28 3. My Ship (Anita O Day) 2 42 4. Here, I Ll Stay (Gerry Mulligan) 4 59 5. September Song (Frank Sinatra) 3 07 6. Mack the Knife (Bing Crosby) 3 54 7. September Song (Art Tatum) 3 22 8. Bilbao Song (Gil Evans Orchestra) 4 12 9. Lost in the Stars (Tony Bennett & Count Basie Orch) 3 59 10. Speak Low (Chris Connor) 2 34 11. Lonely House (Abbey Lincoln) 3 40 12. September Song (Walter Huston) 2 53

Irving Berlin was one of the first and one of the most prolific of tunesmiths who wrote for the Broadway stage and for Hollywood musicals. Furthermore, like Cole Porter but unlike the majority of tunesmiths who worked with lyricists, Berlin wrote both tunes and lyrics. Here we have 19 of his most popular tunes in instrumentals arranged for brass bands. The band in question is the Chestnut Brass Company, founded in Philadelphia in 1977. Most of the tunes are up-tempo, but there are also some more wistful tracks like 'When I lost you', 'What'll I do?' and 'They say it's wonderful'. No Berlin collection would be complete of course without 'White Christmas', which sounds surprisingly poignant in this mellow brass arrangement. Album Tracks 1. Let Yourself Go 2. Top Hat, White Tie and Tails 3. Blue Skies 4. I'll See You in C-U-B-A 5. Alexander's Ragtime Band 6. What'll I Do? 7. Puttin' on the Ritz 8. Get Thee Behind Me Satan 9. Supper Time 10. Listening 11. Heat Wave 12. No Strings (I'm Fancy Free) 13. Lazy 14. That International Rag 15. They Say It's Wonderful 16. White Christmas 17. Harlem on My Mind 18. When I Lost You 19. There's No Business Like Show Business