Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: GUEST,Mark Leier
Date: 20 Sep 22 - 10:08 AM

Frankie Armstrong has a newer album of Brecht, Weill, and Eisler material. On this and the earlier Brecht album with Dave Van Ronk, she sings a version of "Pirate Jenny" that is powerful and for my taste more evocative than any other I've heard. She adapted her version from various translations and added some changes of her own. Perhaps the best one is to ditch Blitzstein's "black freighter" and "ship with eight sails" for "ship with black sails and 50 cannon." The 8 sails is a direct translation, but it's weak; black freighter seems to distort the whole thing. Black sails fits it perfectly, imho. And sounds like the German "acht," or 8, sails.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHNUcRK2np8

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: Joe_F
Date: 20 Nov 14 - 08:50 PM

I have heard that (after making fools of HUAC) Brecht prepared himself for his return to (east) Germany by making sure of his Austrian passport & Swiss bank account. Smart fellow.

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Nov 14 - 02:08 PM

Nobody's got Jenny right, though: she's halfway between Brenda Ann Spencer, the sub-adolescent 16 year-old whose explanation for shooting up the Grover Cleveland Elementary School inspired "I Don't Like Mondays", killing two adults and injuring eight kids, and Eponine, from Les Misérables: her elder sister could be Nancy from Oliver Twist, a prostitute from age 13 and clapped-out (literally) at 16. The adolescent whose rebellion goes far beyond storming up to her room, this one has no room and no shelter, but only deep revenge in her heart. In this I'm of course hearking back to the Beggar's Opera, where
Mac the Knife is born in MacHeath, and Jenny's Jenny Diver, a dip (specialist pickpocket able to "lift" something from the bottom of the deepest pocket, where others might use a knife to cut the bottom out so the contents drop through). In the original, Jenny sells MacHeath out, and so he head's Peachum's list for the next Tyburn Dance. However, the heritage was purely inspirational, in the idea that the sins of the eighteenth Century may be common to Power and not context: give the defenceless poor to rich abusers and see what happens.
What will be interesting to see over the next few months is whether the management of the criminal classes Gay and Rich attacked in the 18th Century (down to, for instance, the heirarchy on the tumbrell where the Highwayman was king of the graduates of the Court of Miracles) continues in the protection of the child abuse circles of our day: they had a go at the PM of theirs. Those of us who keep the background to Thomas Hamilton's motivation in the Dunblane shootings in mind won't be surprised at the current attempts to stifle the Parliamentary investigation.

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 20 Nov 14 - 01:08 AM

Hi Joe-
As I recall, there were no songs in Beggar's Opera corresponding to either.Jenny Diver was a bit player in the original.

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Nov 14 - 05:29 PM

In the original 1728 Beggar's Opera, are there scenes or songs that correspond with "Pirate Jenny" and "Mack the Knife"?

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 18 Oct 08 - 10:34 PM

Lyr. Add: PIRATE JENNY
Trans. R. Mannheim and J. Willett

POLLY: Now you gents all see I've glasses to wash.
When a bed's to be made I make it.
You may tip me with a penny
And I'll thank you very well.
And you see me dressed in tatters, and this tatty old hotel
And you never ask how long I'll take it.
But one of these evenings there will be screams from the harbour
And they'll ask: what can that screaming be?
And they'll see me smiling as I do the glasses
And they'll say: how she can smile beats me.

And a ship with eight sails and
All its fifty guns loaded
has tied up at the quay.

They say: get on, dry your glasses, my girl
And they tip me and don't give a damn.
And their penny is accepted
And their bed will be made
(Although nobody is going to sleep there, I'm afraid)
And they still have no idea who I am.
But one of these evenings there will be explosions from the harbour.
And they'll ask: what kind of a bang was that?
And they'll see me as I stand beside the window
And they'll say: what has she got to smile at?

And that ship with eight sails and
All its fifty guns loaded
Will lay siege to the town.

And a hundred men will land in the bright midday sun
Each stepping where the shadows fall.
They'll look inside each doorway and grab anyone they see
And put him in irons and then bring him to me
And they'll ask: which of these should we kill?
In that noonday heat there'll be a hush round the harbour
As they ask which has got to die.
And you'll hear me as I softly answer: the lot!
And as the first head rolls I'll say hoppla!

And that ship with eight sails and
All its fifty guns loaded
Will vanish with me.

Joe Offer, 19 May 97, posted German lyrics with an extra verse inserted as verse three. Was this in the written script but not used in the production, or used in some presentations (American), or did it arise in some other manner? It is not in either the German text or the Mannheim-Willett translation at either of the two places it appears in the 1979 libretto, copyright Stefan Brecht and Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, Inc.

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 10:23 PM

A matter of taste, I guess.
To me, 'And the ghastly fire in Soho-
Seven children at a go- has punch!
Perhaps more than Brecht's 'seven children and an old man.'

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: M.Ted
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 10:00 PM

I've got a nice recording of Lotte Lenya singing the Blitzstein lyrics, and she doesn't have any trouble singing them to the tune. As to how well the MH lyrics can be sung, the syllables don't scan properly in many places, the language is often awkward, and obscure where it should be direct--lines like this following don't have much punch:

"And the ghastly fire in Soho-
Seven children at a go"-

The thing is, these are theatrical lyrics, the audience neither knows nor cares how closely the language tracks the original German--they don't even care that there was an original German--they respond only if the show speaks to them--

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 02:58 PM

Lyrics (German) from the cd "Ute Lemper sings Kurt Weill" here:
Weill

Some Kaiser-Weill material here as well as "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer."

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 12:57 PM

The Mannheim-Willett lyrics in English can be sung to the Brecht-Weill tune- that is why their translation is so remarkable!

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: M.Ted
Date: 17 Oct 08 - 12:25 PM

Perhaps they follow the German lyrics closely, but they don't really work very well in English.

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: Charley Noble
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 05:41 PM

Excellent!

Charley Noble

Subject: ADD Version: Ballad of Mac the Knife
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Oct 08 - 03:31 PM

BALLAD OF MAC THE KNIFE
Ralph Mannheim and John Willett translation

Ballad Singer:
See the shark with his teeth like razors.
All can read his open face,
And Macheath has got a knife, but
Not in such an obvious place.

On a beautiful blue Sunday
See a corpse stretched in the Strand
See a man dodge round the corner-
Mackie's friends will understand.

And Schmul Meier, reported missing
Like so many wealthy men:
Mac the Knife acquired his cashbox
God alone knows how or when.

Jenny Towler turned up lately
With a knife stuck in her breast.
While Macheath walks the Embankment
Nonchalantly unimpressed.

And the ghastly fire in Soho-
Seven children at a go-
In the crowd stands Mac the knife, but he
Isn't asked and doesn't know.

And the child-bride in her nightie
Whose assailant's still at large
Violated in her slumbers-
Mackie, how much did you charge.

Act 1

Very close to the German posted above.
Brecht, Bertolt and Weill, Kurt
1. Die Songs aus Der Dreigroschenoper. Quarto paperback with photos, and sheet music in German.
2. Die Dreigroschenoper, 1979, English translations by Ralph Mannheim and John Willets, Copyright Stefen Brecht and Kurt Weill Foundation for Music Inc. Link by Wolfgang in thread 115251, Call from the Grave. Call from the Grave
Book not found.

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: JJ
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 08:51 AM

Those interested in Brecht's work in Hollywood might seek out "Hangmen Also Die!" Fritz Lang's 1943 film about the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich and its aftermath. "Bert Brecht" shares adaptation and original story credits with Lang.

These were Brecht's only Hollywood credits, I believe. And the music is by Hanns Eisler!

Although set in Czechoslovakia, the film's actors are purely American (Brian Donlevy, Walter Brennan, Gene Lockhart) in their casting, their manner and their speech, reinforcing the theme of our shared humanity with the Czechs.

I caught it on VHS, but I see it's now available on DVD. This movie features the scariest Nazi I've ever seen in Hans Heinrich von Twardowski's Heydrich.

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: Charley Noble
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 01:38 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: LeTenebreux
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 02:10 PM

Interestingly, in French it's the "l'opere de quatre sous" (four penny opera!)

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: MAG
Date: 23 Aug 08 - 08:27 PM

er, "Lehrstu(e)ke" - Learning Pieces -

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: M.Ted
Date: 23 Aug 08 - 01:51 PM

"The Measures Taken" is not a "spirited defense of Totalitarianism"--in fact, it is a debate of the what one is both obliged and entitled to do to battle evil in the world.

The "Lehrstruck" were a group of collaborative performances that were intended to explore questions about the relationship of the individual and the community. They were intended to provoke debate and even outrage. Which they did, and still do.

"The Measure Taken" is about a group of Communist agents who go into China on a mission. One of their number, is so moved by the suffering that he sees that he tries to help, and this jeopardizes the mission. The other comrades compelled to kill him in order to successfully complete their mission. The play takes place as the surviving comrades explain what has happened to some sort of higher committee.

The statement about Communism, above, "He who fights for Communism must be able to fight and to renounce fighting, to say the truth and not to say the truth, to be helpful and unhelpful, to keep a promise and to break a promise, to go into danger and to avoid danger, to be known and to be unknown. He who fights for Communism has of all the virtues only one: that he fights for Communism." Is only one side of the question.

The other side comes from the murdered man, who says that Communist doctrines allow "misery to wait" and that if they don't provide that "wretched and that every wretched human being should be helped before all else", then they are dirt--

He goes on to say, "I give up all agreement with the others, I alone will do what is human."

In the end, the communists conclude that the measures taken to achieve its objectives were correct, though perhaps unfortunate,( just as any government, corporation, religious group, or advocacy group might) that but the audiences were left to deal with the unpleasant implications of it all.

This was the intention of the Lehrstruck--to create discussion about the relationship between the individuals moral vision and the objectives of the community--

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: Joe_F
Date: 22 Aug 08 - 09:21 PM

_Die Massnahme_ (The Measures Taken, 1931) is a spirited defense of totalitarianism: "He who fights for Communism must be able to fight and to renounce fighting, to say the truth and not to say the truth, to be helpful and unhelpful, to keep a promise and to break a promise, to go into danger and to avoid danger, to be known and to be unknown. He who fights for Communism has of all the virtues only one: that he fights for Communism." -- Quoted by Koestler in _The Invisible Writing_, wherein you may read a synopsis of that play, which anticipates the Moscow trials.

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: M.Ted
Date: 22 Aug 08 - 12:28 PM

Mr. Noble--When I made my comment about writing a book, I was just quoting a song as a way of indicating that I have a lot to say--I am not a scholar of any kind on the subject. I happen to have been reading a lot about Eisler lately, and also some of Eric Bentley, so Brecht is fresh in my mind.

I am more than delighted to find that there are some here who have an interest in Brecht and company--or good or ill, there always seems to be more discussion of Brecht's life than of his work.

I am afraid I am a bit guilty of that here, though perhaps it is because I am pleased to be talking about him at all. Be that as it may, here's another quote from Martin Esslin, grist for the mill.

"None of his plays has an openly propagandistic effect.
Brecht's Communism, based as it was largely on a fanatical
pacifism and love of intellectual freedom, has in any case
little in common with the present totalitarian form of
ideology..."

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: MAG
Date: 22 Aug 08 - 11:47 AM

Brecht was certainly an unashamed leftie. His "Lehrstucke" is all about dialectics. "Round Heads and POinted Heads" is about how divisions in the ruling class are eventually outweighed by their commonalities. (usually thought to be a commentary on Hitler's scapegoating of Jews) "Mother Courage" speakes for itself on complicity with war.

There is evidence that Brecht was thoroughly disillusioned with Stalinism; having his own theater with complete artistic freedom was something it would have been hard (impossible) for him to resist.

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: GUEST,Gulliver
Date: 22 Aug 08 - 04:26 AM

You could say:

The West liked his poetry and distrusted his Communism, the East liked his Communism and distrusted his poetry.

Don

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: Rowan
Date: 21 Aug 08 - 10:23 PM

And I've just remembered there were others in a similar position. Early on in my career I was taught by Ernst Matthei, who'd been a seriously heavy microscopist in preWar Germany; he entertained us with tales from his work there. I forget the details of which name (Leica/Leitz) came first but, postWar, the technology and staff of the original optical works was split between East and West Germany. Those in West Germany organised themselves into a fair copy of a workers' cooperative (which earned the suspicion of the Americans) while the ones in East Germany had no choice about being one, but had various 'capitalist' attirbutes that earned them suspicion from the Russians.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: Rowan
Date: 21 Aug 08 - 10:11 PM

A nice quote, Charley; it sums up my understanding of how he was regarded, on both sides of The Wall.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: Charley Noble
Date: 21 Aug 08 - 09:48 PM

Here's a nice quote:

Esslin puts the "curious paradox" of Brecht in a nutshell: "Brecht was a Communist, he was also a great poet. But while the West liked his poetry and distrusted his Communism, the Communists exploited his political convictions while they regarded his artistic aims and achievements with suspicion."

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: Charley Noble
Date: 21 Aug 08 - 09:35 PM

M. Ted-

You should consider writing the book or at least an article. Brecht is an important literary figure and there isn't much perspective evident in this thread.

I don't have a lot of familiarity with traditional German folk music, other than drinking songs and sea shanties. But I don't think either of those have much to do with what I find intriguing about the music that Brecht and his friends created.

I also think that Brecht found Hollywood in the World War 2 period only endurable because he was doing something to help the war effort to defeat Nazi Germany.

When he fled the States in the late 1940's to Switzerland, it was only a temporary haven. And the offer from East Germany for financial support for his own theatre company was compelling, and his wife did have family in East Berlin; his wife was also a principal actress in his plays. The East German "commissars" were never comfortable with Brecht but their Moscow counterparts were savvy enough to engineer a Starlin Prize or whatever it was called.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 Aug 08 - 08:12 PM

If they asked me, I could write a book, Rowan--I didn't really get into any discussion of the things that really interest me about the works themselves, aesthetically or politically--It is a point worth noting that the film version of "Threepenny Opera" was directed by GW Pabst, who was one of the leading exponents of Expressionism.

PG--Brecht had practically no place to go--he'd been invited to the Allied occupied zone, and that invitation had been rescinded, in Switzerland, he had worn out his welcome, when it came to light that he'd been granted Austrian citizenship, the outrage was so great that the project that he was working on, which was a revival of the Saltzburg Festival, completely collapsed, and he essentially was handed his walking papers.

When he returned, the GDR had not yet been formed, and "East Berlin" was simply the Russian occupied territory, and it wasn't necessarily clear what the future would be. Brecht was not alone, many German intellectuals went to the Eastern Zone with the hope of rebuilding the devastation in a better way.

Certainly there were romantics among them, but Brecht was no romantic. He was a playwright, whose ongoing goal was simple to create and produce his work.

There were certainly others Germans who left the US for the Communist Bloc. Vladimir Pozner, who was for years a fixture on a variety of news programs, grew up in the US and returned with his family to East Germany in the 50's. His father was actual a friend of Brecht's. And you could ask Pozner to explain why his family went back, but you'd have to go to Moscow, where he now runs a restaurant.

Another to ask about the appeal of East Germany would have been Dean Reed. Though he was labelled "The Red Elvis", he was one of us--an American folkie who played Lomax and Woody and Weavers tunes, and embraced a lot of New Left ideas. He was a big star and made a lot of money on the other side.   You can't ask him, though, they found him floating in the water near the boat dock on his palatial estate. Hmm.

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: Rowan
Date: 21 Aug 08 - 07:19 PM

I certainly know that one can be more-or-less "leftist" without embracing Stalinist-type authoritarianism. And, having been born in the USA in 1947, I have no idea how Europe in the late 40s would have "felt" to a grown-up artist like Brecht, but still... I can't help but have doubts about the judgement of anyone with his wealth of options to have freely chosen to settle in the East at that time.

PoppaGator, I suspect there's a couple of things going on in the background that influenced both Brecht's settlement in East Berlin and your perception of it. I may have misremembered this but what passes for my memory suggests that Helene Weigl had family there that required her (and thus her partner's) presence. I may be confusing this ("postwar") aspect with a "prewar" event but I don't have the details to hand. The influence of 'neighbourhood' (plus a theatre) may have outweighed gross state politics. Then there's the fact that you and I are both the products of well established democracies that have weathered most of the assaults launched against them, whereas Brecht's upbringing was in a slightly different context and probably influenced his ability to cope; how he constructed his ability to live in East Berlin is something I suspect neither you nor I could emulate.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: Rowan
Date: 21 Aug 08 - 07:00 PM

M.Ted has expressed my understanding of the German cabaret scene of the 20s and 30s probably better than I could have myself but I think I'd have also emphasised a willingness on the part of Eisler, Weill and Brecht to deal with the absurd and the surreal; juxtaposing these with classical training and elements of popular culture (some of which had elements of what we'd recognise as "folk") would have fitted into other aspects of the cultural context of Germany at that time.

It might be my own idiosyncracy but what I get from their productions seems very related to what I got from The Goons in the 50s and Monty Python in the 70s and I suspect that, if Leon Rosselson had been writing the music for these two latter events, the relationship might have been even stronger.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: Charley Noble
Date: 21 Aug 08 - 05:11 PM

Hmmmm:

"In 1948 Brecht settled in East Berlin, where he remained until his death. He and his wife, the actress Helene Weigel, founded the Berliner Ensemble in September 1949 with ample financial support from the state. This group became the most famous theater company in East Germany and the foremost interpreter of Brecht. He himself devoted much of his time to directing. He wrote no new plays except Die Tage der Commune (1949; The Days of the Commune) but adapted several--among them Molière's Don Juan and Shakespeare's Coriolanus. There is some evidence that he modified his austere conception of the function of drama and conceded the importance of the theater as a vehicle for entertainment."

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: Charley Noble
Date: 21 Aug 08 - 05:08 PM

I thought that part of the deal that persuaded Brecht to move to East Belin was the promise of a theatre and theatre company to produce his plays.

My Brecht biography is currently misplaced! Guess I'll have to Goggle for the answers.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: PoppaGator
Date: 21 Aug 08 - 04:51 PM

Ted, thanks for all that input. You obviously love this subject enough to have learned a whole lot about it.

And I do appreciate your comparison of postwar Berlin to post-Katrina New Orleans. But Brecht had a choice between West and East Berlin, did he not? Or perhaps, if early enough, among four zones of occupation, American, British, French, and Russian? Or was it really that necessary that he return not only to his home city, but to his original neighborhood?

I certainly know that one can be more-or-less "leftist" without embracing Stalinist-type authoritarianism. And, having been born in the USA in 1947, I have no idea how Europe in the late 40s would have "felt" to a grown-up artist like Brecht, but still... I can't help but have doubts about the judgement of anyone with his wealth of options to have freely chosen to settle in the East at that time.

Smacks of a romantic attachment to the theory of Marxism in the face of a much harsher reality, where the "dictatorship of the proletariat" had long since proven to be no better than any other form of dictatorship. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and anyone who has assumed the powers of a dictator has long ago ceased to be any kind of "regular guy" prole.

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 Aug 08 - 01:52 PM

Understand that many, even most of the German Cabaret songs sound like pop tunes of the time, with a German, rather than French flavor. Earlier tunes sound more like operettas, later ones, more like Jazz. Think "Lilli Marlene" and "Just a Gigalo"--

Weill's "cabaret orchestra" sound is classically composed music, using the idioms of the cabaret orchestra, but developed with the palate and imagination of a 20th Century composer. So it has the sound and feel of cabaret music,a but it goes in other directions.

A lot of contempory people try to do a take on "decadent" cabaret music--some try sound like animals who need to be put out of their misery, but that's not right--the music was supposed to be fun, with it's own kind of "three chords and the truth" underpinnings-

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 Aug 08 - 01:35 PM

Despite what you might think, Brecht, Weill and Eisler tried to create music that common people could listen to, enjoy, and sing. The language was street vernacular, not elevated poetry, the songs were singable, and, in fact, there was a cabaret in Berlin where only the songs of Threepenny Opera were played.

From the beginning, Brecht was the original "protest" singer--with his guitar, his leather jacket, and his angry poetry, and Weill consciously wrote in the manner of Donizetti, who used folk melodies as the basis for his opera.

Threepenny Opera was an opera so cheap, even a beggar could afford it, and it was based on John Gay's "Beggar's Opera" which was a repository for many of the folk melodies that we know today.

So it is folk.

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: Charley Noble
Date: 21 Aug 08 - 01:25 PM

So Eisler and Weill were classically trained but used their training to create tunes which hardly appear classical to my ears. Did they have mentors or was the French Cabaret already exploring such tunes?

I'm familiar with British Music Hall tunes, and American minstrelsy, ragtime, blues, and early jazz, and nothing seems to correlate to what these Germans were composing. Intriguing!

Of course I have little familiarity with classical composers, and the radicals within.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 Aug 08 - 01:23 PM

Missed your post, PG-but here is as much as I have time for in reply--

Brecht wasn't actually all that welcome in Switzerland, and he moved to Austria, where he was granted citizenship, but there was a great backlash when it was discovered. When he went back to Berlin, he was basically back home, and it was a home that had been devasted by the thing that he had fought against up until he had been forced to leave.

To personalize it a bit, Berlin after the war probably seemed a lot like New Orleans after Katrina. As an artist, as an advocate of social justice, as a human being, he was compelled to accept whatever he found and to use it as a starting place.

He was a poet and a playwright--he used Marx as a way to look at the dynamic of society, and and the economic system that sustained it, but he was a social moralist, not a Communist--he wanted people to see the truth about the world that they lived in, and, by helping them to understand it, he hoped that they could unite and build a better world.

In that sense, ultimately, he had to be back in Berlin.

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 Aug 08 - 12:33 PM

The German Cabaret scene actually began at the turn of the 20th Century, and was meant to be a German version of French cabaret--it's intention was to be a light, popular entertainment, and included plays, political satires, clowns, and lots of music.

After the end of the Great War, "The Lost Generation" converged on Berlin, developing it's own intellectual counterculture that rooted itself in the cabarets that had been established by the previous generation.

Eisler was a classical student of Schonberg, Brecht was a poet/singer/songwriter who performed with the famous clown and mime, Karl Valentin, and Weill was a classically trained composer, as well.

Basically, the idea was to take the popular musical theatre and use it as a vehicle to express the disillusionment and anger that was everyone was experiencing.

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: PoppaGator
Date: 21 Aug 08 - 12:01 PM

Y'all have really piqued my interest in that post-WWII political history involving Brecht. I thought there was something fishy about the first mention of Joe McCarthy, because ~ little as I know about this particular subplot ~ I do know that Joe didn't emerge as a powerful anti-Commie force until a few years into the 50s.

Brecht has to have been a true believer is Marxist-Leninism, since he chose to settle in the GDR despite ample opportunities to live out his days much more comfortably in Switzerland or in West Germany. (If it's true that he was born in Bavaria or any other area in the west, it's even more telling that he would have taken up residence over on the other side.)

I can well understand any impatience/aversion he would have felt in regard to the American anti-Communist hysteria of that era. having had the B'way production of his current show essentially blacklisted, but I wouldn't think he'd have had the same kind of problems in Switzerland, Munich, or anywhere in Western Europe.

*******************

It occurred to me earlier this morning, after this discussion had been going on for a few days, that it's interesting, if not remarkable, that interest in this very esoteric variety of "art-song" has not brought forth the slightest whimper from the folk-purist contingent. If there's anything one could validly classify/criticize as non-folk music, it would be this stuff that no one can figure out the chords to, no audience could be expected to sing along with, etc.

If not for Judy Collins and Dave Van Ronk, I seriously doubt that anyone would ever have had the slightest idea of classifying Brecht-Weill material within the folk-music sphere. Both of those artists have stated adamantly that they saw themselves as singers first, and only incidentally as singers whose repertoires included folk songs. (Well, Dave was every bit as much a guitar player as as singer, but he stated more than once that he considered himself a jazz artist whose special interest in traditional jazz, vintage ragtime, and blues allowed him to participate in the Folk Revival.)

Ot my mind, widely known-and-loved pieces such as "Louie Louie" and "Twist and Shout" are much closer to qualifying as contemporary real-world "folksongs" than are "Pirate Jenny" and "Alabama Song."

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: MAG
Date: 21 Aug 08 - 11:07 AM

Again, the common wisdom is that Brecht conned HUAC by playing dumb furriner. As you noted Ted, the Black List was already in full riot gear.

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: GUEST,Rosalie
Date: 21 Aug 08 - 10:27 AM

This week WNYC is doing a series on "The Best of WNYC" that opened with the music of Weimar Germany and recordings from the original 3 Penny Opera. Look on WNYC.org.
    I'm pretty sure that the record I have has Lotte Lenya singing Pirate Jenny in English. It is the original cast album from the Broadway production and might be available on CD. I never saw the production, just got the album.

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: Charley Noble
Date: 21 Aug 08 - 09:20 AM

Rowan et al-

Is there a short answer to the roots of "the German cabaret scene of the 20s and 30s"? Is it early jazz, Balkan based, or what? There doesn't seem to be anything equivalent in American popular music or Broadway show tunes during the late 1920's or early 1930's. What planet did Weill and Eisler come from?

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 Aug 08 - 12:04 AM

MAG--Brecht had more than one reason to leave. It is an interesting and complex story. HUAC actually liked him--and commended his testimony. He had had extensive contact with Soviet intelligence while in the US, however, and his glib dismissals might not have been enough to ward off further scrutiny. Also, when Laughton realized that Brecht was being investigated, he quickly broke off all ties with him, which effectively destroyed "Gallileo"s prospects on Broadway. That was likely a harbinger of things to come.

He went to Switzerland first, where he was highly regarded, and soon was producing and directing his work in his native language.

The Communists, both Russian and German, did not like his work, and thought his composers, Weill and Eisler, were too modern and complex. Brecht said something to the effect that, "They want folk music!"

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: Charley Noble
Date: 20 Aug 08 - 10:16 PM

I was always intrigued with the music as well as the story. I find that somewhat surprising now because it is so much more complex than the folk music I was raised with, and I never stood a chance of being able to play it. It was so radically different, and yet so intriguing.

Maybe it's time to folk process the lyrics some more, so it's closer to the original literal translation but also more nautical.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: MAG
Date: 20 Aug 08 - 06:57 PM

M. Ted, the post-war anti-communist hysteria is generally considered the reason Brecht left this country, to which he fled from the nazis.

We do tend to conflate HUAC and McCarthy here; they were of a piece.

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: Rowan
Date: 20 Aug 08 - 06:48 PM

G'day PoppaGator,
Apart from the locations (Melbourne has always been musically different from New Orleans, for example) your self-description largely applies to me, too. My use of the term was largely derived from observations of the very 'inner-suburban' adolescents I coped with during the 70s and 80s; their resistance to anything that challenged their preconceptions was often rivalled only by the similar resistance (to the same challenges) offered by the very rural characters I've encountered in the 90s and 00s.

While my roots are Oz/Anglo/Celtic I have played gamelan and Balkan, and enjoyed almost every genre I've encountered. Oz Radio National does a weekly program "Into the music" which presents an eclectic palette that included (a while ago now) a program on Weill and Brecht, and another on the movers and shakers in the German cabaret scene of the 20s and 30s. Music to my ears.

Cheers, Rowan

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: M.Ted
Date: 20 Aug 08 - 01:51 PM

MAG--Brecht testified before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee in 1947. McCarthy was a Senator, and, in any event, McCarthy didn't begin his Anti-Communist activities til his famous speech in Wheeling,WVa in 1950.

As to the rest, Brecht went back to Europe after testifying, but, at least according to Eric Bentley(who worked with him from 1942 on), he had always intended to go back to Germany as soon as the war was over. The hearings probably influenced his timing, but the poor reaction of critics to his play "Gallileo", which featured Charles Laughton, also made a difference.

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: PoppaGator
Date: 20 Aug 08 - 12:26 PM

Rowan,

I don't mind being called a "pop-folkie," not at all. That's probably as accurate a description as any other pigeon-hole into which I might be put.

My tastes are pretty eclectic; while I have a special kind of interest in songs and genres that I would be able to perform on solo acoustic guitar and vocals-with-limitations, I enjoy listening to a much wider variety of music, mostly blues/jazz/R&B.

I really enjoy much of the popular music of my younger years, some of which I was too much of a folk-snob to admit liking at the time, including even some of the greatest of Motown and Stax/Volt AND the early "British Invasion." I didn't completely get over my case of folk/blues purism until Paul Butterfield proved to me that worthwhile music could be produced by electric guitars, bass and drums, and then Bob Dylan went onstage with Butterfield's band to bring a whole new dimension to rock n roll.

I'm not especially conversant with current-day pop music, because I'm fortunate enough to live in New Orleans, a community with its own incredibly vibrant musical culture, where brilliant young players are constantly creating new music with deep roots in a unique local tradition. I never listen to top-40 radio, hip-hop radio, "today's country" radio, or any of that crap, and hardly ever even overhear it. I don't watch "American Idol," and I don't even buy CDs. When I'm not watching TV or engaged in other non-musical activities, I listen to WWOZ FM 90.7 and, when play my guitar, I stick mostly to my frozen-in-time repertoire of blues, folk, acoustic psychedelia and Dylan, developed when I was a full-time busker from 1969 to 1972.

PS: I also first head this song on that Judy Collins album, but that doesn't mean I didn't know it was a Brecht-Weill composition ~ I read the liner notes! Plus which, I had enough general education and exposure to culture to have some idea of who they were, and that there was such a thing as "The Threepenny Opera" which also featured that Bobby Darin song, "Mack the Knife." (It wasn't until many years later that I learned about Louis Armstrong's earlier recording, which Darin and his arranger(s) essentially copied note-for-note.)

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: MAG
Date: 20 Aug 08 - 10:55 AM

We have Joe cCarthy to thank for Brecht ending up in East Germany; the story goes he walked out of his hearing with a ticket back to Europe in his pocket, and the only place that offered him work was East gErmany. He was originally, I think, Bavarian. German before the split, anyway.

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: Arkie
Date: 19 Aug 08 - 09:44 PM

Actually Judy Collin's version of Pirate Jenny was the first time I had heard the song and I did wonder about the source. Sometime later I discovered that it was from the Three Penny Opera and can't say that I was all that surprised. I do like Judy's and Maddy's versions and had wondered why they used different titles. I hope to someday hear Lotte Lenya and the whole of the Three Penny Opera.

Have been intrigued by this song since I first heard it and appreciate all the discussion.

Subject: RE: Pirate Jenny & Mack the Knife
From: Rowan
Date: 19 Aug 08 - 09:27 PM

I've just realised that readers of my post might (reasonably) infer that I've implied that Joe, Arkie, PoppaGator et al. are pop-folkies; nothing could be further from the truth, or my intention.

And, while I enjoyed Maddy Prior's rendition, I prefer Lotte Lenya's.

Cheers, Rowan