I think I booked this one because of the Weill/Brecht. I really like the songs from The Threepenny Opera and you don’t often see them on the Wigmore Hall listings. Janie likes a bit of Shostakovich, so we thought we’d give it a try.
The concert comprised:
- Alfred Schnittke – Sonata No 1 for Violin and Piano
- Dmitri Shostakovich – Sonata for Violin and Piano Op 134
- Maurice Ravel – Kaddish
- William Walton – Sonata for Violin and Piano
- Kurt Weill, Simon Mulligan & Bertolt Brecht – Songs from “The Threepenny Opera”
In truth, I think this concert convinced us that 20th century music, on the whole, is not for us.
Here’s the first movement of the Schnittke, to give you an idea:
Try the last movement of the Shostakovich
I do recall rather liking the Kaddish, which I hadn’t heard before:
Here’s the first movement of the Walton:
Finally, here is a link to a more recent recording by David Frühwirth & Henri Sigfridsson, which I think is a similar sound to that of Hope & Mulligan doing the Threepenny Opera thing, although I think Hope and Mulligan were a bit more jazzy.