Bard Music Festival
Program Four: Popular Music from the Cabarets, Taverns, and Salons of Korngold's Vienna
August 11, 2019
Bard Music Festival
August 11, 2019
10 am Performance with Commentary by Derek Scott; with So Young Park, soprano; Joshua Wheeker, tenor; and others
Popular songs and songs from film and stage by Johann Strauss II (1825–99); Leon Jessel (1871–1942); Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951); Robert Stolz (1880–1975); Ralph Benatzky (1884–1957); Friedrich Hollaender (1896–1976); Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897–1957); Ernst Krenek (1900–91); and others
The interwar period saw a number of classical compositions find more mainstream success, as Program Four – a performance with commentary – discovers. Frühlingsstimmen was one of several works by “Waltz King” Johann Strauss II to be popularized through recordings by beloved coloratura sopranos, and the concert aria found further fame when performed onscreen in two of The Three Stooges’ slapstick shorts. Similarly, “Mariettas Lied” from Korngold’s Die tote Stadt reached a wider audience through the recording by Lotte Lehmann and Richard Tauber. Before being denounced by the Nazis as the epitome of artistic degeneracy, Ernst Krenek’s arietta “Leb’ wohl mein Schatz,” from his jazz-themed opera, Jonny spielt auf, was successfully marketed and recorded in multiple arrangements as "Jonny’s Blues." And Marlene Dietrich’s recordings brought the songs of Friedrich Hollaender, whose score for The Blue Angel featured her signature hit, “Falling in Love Again (Can’t Help It),” to a vast and adoring international audience.