Kurt Weill: Symphony No. 2 & Violin Concerto, Op.12

Featuring

Jac van Steen
Tamás Kocsis
Ulster Orchestra
Kurt Weill

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Recording & Production

This album was recorded at Ulster Hall, Belfast, from October 12-14, 2021, with David Byers as Recording Producer and Ben Connellan as Recording Engineer.

Composition History

Weill's Violin Concerto was dedicated to Joseph Szigeti, a noted violinist who had made the first recordings of Prokofiev's and Busoni's concertos.

Composer Biography

Kurt Weill was chosen as one of five master-students by the renowned piano virtuoso and composer Ferruccio Busoni at the Berlin Preussische Akademie der Künste.

Composition History

Weill's Symphony No. 2 was commissioned by Princesse Edmond de Polignac (Winnaretta Singer, heiress to the Singer sewing machine fortune) in Paris after Weill fled Germany in 1933.

Historical Context

The economic constraints across Europe after World War I led to a greater reliance on smaller ensembles, influencing younger composers to move away from neo-Romanticism.

Compositional Technique

Weill's Violin Concerto, like Busoni's Piano Concerto, features five movements and a tarantella-like finale, with the first movement quoting the funeral plainchant Dies Irae.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Kurt Weill, as a teenager, worked in musical theatre, which inspired his lifelong goal of making the genre aesthetically valid while also composing concert and chamber music.