In Search of Youkali: The Songs of Kurt Weill

I first came to Kurt Weill’s music through a Radio Three broadcast (April 1975) of The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny starring his wife Lotte Lenya, and I was hooked. A second-hand shop in Glasgow had a copy of The Lotte Lenya Album (Columbia Masterworks – MG 30087, 1970), which I invested in. Consequently, I have associated Kurt Weill’s songs with her for more than half a century. That album was conveniently divided into two records: Lotte Lenya Sings Berlin Theater Songs of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya Sings American Theater Songs of Kurt Weill. To my mind, whether justified or not, these accounts remain unsurpassed. Yet, time moves forward, and new generations of performers assume the task of singing and re‑imagining Weill’s music.

All the numbers on this new Chandos disc are performed in arrangements for various combinations of instrumentation, created by the players themselves.

Mezzo-soprano Katie Bray has also decided to structure her recital by pre-and-post Weill’s escape to the United States, which he did in September 1935 (after a sojourn in Paris). The two halves are interlaced with a series of improvisations based on Youkali, subtitled a “Tango‑habanera.” This was originally conceived as an instrumental tango for his ill‑fated French musical Marie Galante, which opened in Paris on 22 December 1934. The liner notes describe Youkali as Weill’s own Somewhere Over the Rainbow - a piece filled with wistful echoes and sad reminiscences of times past.

The three instrumentalists (accordion, piano and double bass) come together to play the Overture to Die Dreigroschenoper. This was completed in 1928, as a play, written by Bertolt Brecht, with Weill’s music. Katie Bray sings the Barbarasong from this work, which I understand was “borrowed” from Eduard Kunneke’s 1921 hit Der Vetter aus Dingsda. Here, the character Polly rejects several “decent guys” and settles for a wastrel.

Kurt Weill composed Berlin im Licht (Berlin Lit Up) for the 1928 Festival of Light. It celebrates the city’s “Golden Twenties” with jazzy foxtrot rhythms and Brecht’s witty lyrics. It revels in the electric brilliance of the city emerging from the deprivations of the First World War.

Surabaya Johnny, from the three-act musical comedy, Happy End (1929) is one of Weill’s best loved numbers. It depicts a female narrator trapped in uncertainty, unable to sever ties with her criminal lover despite his destructive lifestyle.

It is good that Katie Bray has included three songs in French. The first, a dark, introspective Complainte de la Seine (Lament of the Seine) which captures the paradox of the river as both a graveyard of suffering and a vessel carrying remnants of beauty, wealth, and human fragility. The second, Je ne t'aime pas (1934) beautifully expresses the tension between repeated protestations of “I do not love you” and the undercurrent of sorrow and yearning that contradicts them. The lyricist was Maurice Magre, and they were written for the French cabaret singer and actor Lys Gauty.

The final French song is taken from the above-mentioned Marie Galante. J'attends un navire (1934) majors on lost innocence of a courtesan and a dream of a ship carrying away her heart and tears toward a remembered purity.

Turning to the American repertoire. In 1942, Weill contributed to a “touring half-hour program of comedy, song and dance” which visited defence manufacturers’ factories to provide entertainment to the workers. They were known as Lunchtime Follies. The jaunty Buddy on the Nightshift was a collaboration with Oscar Hammerstein. It encourages their mate to “push those planes along” and tells him that soon he will take over “all wide awake and strong.”

Nanna’s Lied, sung in German, is a setting of a lyric by Bertolt Brecht. It is a brittle, sometimes bitter, song that tells of a woman looking back on love, aging, and passing desire, blending tender melody with sharp social insight.

No disc of Weill’s vocal music would be complete without the “bittersweet elegy of autumnal romance,” September Song. Here it is heard in a lovely arrangement for piano solo. It was originally part of the fusion of American pop and “old world operetta, Knickerbocker Holiday produced in 1938.

Shortly before his death, Weill wrote five numbers for a musical based on the life of Mark Twain’s legendary Huckelberry Finn. Two are heard here. Apple Jack is a comical song about the dangers of drink! The beautiful This Time Next Year always brings a tear to the eye.

Speak Low is deservedly popular. Originally included in the Broadway musical One Touch of Venus (1943) which satirised contemporary American suburban values, artistic fads, and romantic and sexual mores. It is a well-wrought nocturne of whispered desire.

The musical play Lady in the Dark (1941) is about a fashion editor undergoing psychoanalysis, exploring dreams, indecision, love, trauma, and self-discovery. The lyrics were by Ira Gershwin. My Ship, where the singer is awaiting a vessel, becomes a metaphor for unrequited love and finally inner reconciliation.

Katie Bray won the Dame Joan Sutherland Audience Prize at the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World in 2019, a milestone that brought her international attention. She has appeared with leading UK companies including English National Opera, Opera North, and Scottish Opera, in roles ranging from Rosina (Il barbiere di Siviglia) to Hansel (Hansel and Gretel). Equally at home in the recital room, she is acknowledged for her interpretations of baroque repertoire and Kurt Weill’s music. Joining her are Murray Grainger (accordion), Marianne Schofield (double bass), and William Vann (piano), whose artistry brings a thoughtful magic to the programme. The booklet contains a major essay rather than brief notes on each song. It is illustrated with photos of all the performers and the composer. The texts and translations are included.

Katie Bray’s recital reveals a voice leaning more toward operatic richness than Lotte Lenya’s husky contralto, famed for its blend of tenderness and biting irony. Nor does she echo Ute Lemper’s theatrical cabaret style. Instead, Bray offers a warmly engaging balance of classical refinement and cabaret mix of sensuality, satire, and sparkle, in her interpretation of these songs. This recital is wonderfully fresh, yet respectful of tradition, confirming Kurt Weill’s genius as a crossover composer.

Track Listing:
Kurt Weill (1900-50)
A Glimpse of Youkali - An Improvisation (2025)
Die Dreigroschenoper: Barbarasong (1928)
Berlin im Licht (1928)
Overture to Die Dreigroschenoper (1928)
Happy End: Surabaya Johnny (1929)
A Vision of Youkali - An Improvisation (2025)
Complainte de la Seine (1934)
Je ne t'aime pas (1934)
Marie Galante: J'attends un navire (1934)
A Dream of Youkali - An Improvisation (2025)
Lunchtime Follies: Buddy on the Nightshift (1942)
Nanna's Lied (1939)
Knickerbocker Holiday: September Song (1938)
Huckleberry Finn: Apple Jack (1950)
A Premonition of Youkali - An Improvisation (2025)
One Touch of Venus: Speak Low (1943)
Lady in the Dark: My Ship (1940)
Huckleberry Finn: This Time Next Year (1950)
Youkali: Mouvement de Tango-habanera (1935).
Katie Bray (mezzo-soprano), Murray Grainger (accordian), Marianne Schofield (double bass), William Vann (piano)
rec. 3-5 February 2025, St George’s, Headstone, Harrow, Middlesex
Texts and translations included
Chandos Digital CHAN20359

With thanks to MusicWeb International where this review was first published.