Love Song: The Lives of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya

Noted historian of the Broadway musical chronicles the braided lives of two of the twentieth century's most influential artists

For the first time, Ethan Mordden chronicles the romance of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya in Love Song, a dual biography that unfolds against the background of the tumultuous twentieth century, scored to music from Weil's greatest triumphs: Knickerbocker Holiday, Lost in the Stars, Lady in the Dark, Happy End, One Touch of Venus and The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. The romance of Weill, the Jewish cantor's son, and Lenya, the Viennese coachman's daughter, changed the history of Western music. With Bertolt Brecht, they created one of the definitive works of the twentieth century, The Threepenny Opera, a smash that would live on in musical theatre history. Weill, the jazz Mozart, was the creator whose work is backstage, unseen. Lenya, his epic-theatre femme fatale, was the performer who put the work into view. They heard the same unique music, but he gave it form while she gave it life. Love Song is ultimately the story of a great romance scored to some of the twentieth century's greatest music.

Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: St. Martins Press-3PL
Published: 10/16/2012
ISBN: 9780312676575
Pages: 334
Weight: 1.23lbs
Size: 9.57h x 6.47w x 1.36d

Review Citations: Library Journal 05/01/2012 pg. 55
Publishers Weekly 08/06/2012
Kirkus Reviews 09/01/2012
Library Journal 09/15/2012 pg. 73
Booklist 10/01/2012 pg. 10
New York Times Book Review 01/06/2013 pg. 9
Booklist Editors Choice/Adult 01/01/2013 pg. 7
New York Review of Books 04/04/2013 pg. 44