edited by Naomi Graber and Marida Rizzuti, Turnhout, Brepols, 2023 (Contemporary Composers, 5), pp. xii+278, ISBN 978-2-503-60674-3.
The Works of Kurt Weill: Transformations and Reconfigurations in 20th-Century Music brings together an international group of scholars to explore one of the most important and intriguing composers of the twentieth century.
The collection approaches Kurt Weill’s career from new angles. Shedding new light on perennial issues such as the apparent split between his German and US careers, while pushing into new scholarly territory, including Weill’s engagement with technology and film, and his lasting legacy on Broadway and beyond.
The volume consists of two parts: the first, ‘Transformations’, explores the composer’s poetics, dramaturgy and expressive techniques through a number of case studies spanning Weill’s entire output (theater, film, radio); in the second, ‘Reconfigurations’, the composer’s transnational career and reception are investigated through his compositional, poetic, and aesthetic choices.
Naomi Graber is an Associate Professor at the University of Georgia, where she researches the film and theatre of the United States in the 1930s and 1940s. She is the author of Kurt Weill’s America (Oxford 2021) and several articles on Weill’s U.S. career. She is also co-editor of Trax on the Trail, a website that tracks and analyzes music in U.S. political campaigns.
Marida Rizzuti is a Research Fellow and Adjunct Professor at the Department of Humanistic Studies at the University of Turin. She coordinates the study group Galaxy Musical (GalMus) within the Italian Society of Musicology. Her areas of study are Musical and Film Musical, Exile studies, and Film Music History. She is the author of the volumes I musical di Kurt Weill. Prospettive, generi e tradizioni (2006), Kurt Weill e Frederick Loewe. Pigmalione fra la 42ma e il Covent Garden (2015), Molly Picon e gli artisti Yiddish born in USA (2021).
