Kurt Weill: Propheten; Whitman Songs

Even fans may wonder what they have their hands on here; lists of his works do not contain anything called . The booklet notes, in a fairly roundabout fashion, tells the story. Vastly simplified, (" ") is a concert version of music mostly from the fourth act of 's operatic oratorio (German: or "The Way of the Covenant"), with a 1934 text by . That text dealt with the history of the Jewish people and ended with the sack of the Temple in Jerusalem. For its time, the opera did indeed have prophetic overtones. Featuring no fewer than 245 singers, the opera, translated into English, was a critical and popular success in New York but a financial failure, and it was not revived until the 1990s. As a way of reviving part of it, made this 45-minute concert version in German; the present recording was made from that in 1998 by the under . The music is a mixture of spoken word, sung texts, and orchestral passages. It does have the feel of having been extracted from something larger, but it is reasonably involving on its own, and the singers, little-known figures from that time, are fine. 's language here is conservative, looking back to 19th century oratorio; those familiar with 's symphonic music or his American musicals may not recognize the composer. However, is clearly emerging as a major figure, neither modernist nor late Romantic, and this work reveals a new side to his musical character. ~ James Manheim