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'Speak Low (When You Speak love):
The Letters of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya'

Edited and translated by Lys Symonette and Kim H
Kowalke; University of Califbrnia Press; $35.

1)

ver 70 years have passed I inspire him to do things he re-
year they also applied for Amer-
since the beginnings of a ally loves doing."
ican citizenship.
correspondence between
Speak Low illustrates Weill's
Their correspondence covered
Kurt Weill and Lotte far-reaching influence on musi-
their
daily activities as well as
Lenya; a correspondence which, cal theater and popular music:
their reactions to war — using
spanning the years be-
His works and vision are as coded speech to get Weill and his
tween 1924 and 1948, is
prominent. and contem- possessions out of Germany
documented in 375 let-
REVIEW
porary today as they were (Weill's letters and music pre-
ters, 18 postcards and 17
at the time of their debut, 1933 were confiscated by the
telegrams.
perhaps more so.
Nazis and never retrieved). The
Co-editor Kim H. Kowalke
Karoline Wilhelmine Char-
notes that renowned composer lotte Blamauer (1898-1981), correspondence details their work
Weill and his muse, a.k.a. Lotte Lenya, born to a poor and their dealings with promi-
actress/singer/dancer Lenya, Viennese family, lacked the sup- nent artists of the day, and, of
"needed each other on a 'creative' port and formal training of Weill course, their love for each other.
Bursting with colorful, dy-
level that transcended ordi-
namic language, Weill's and
nary emotional, erotic or pro-
Lenya's letters don't hold back
fessional bonds." And when
on anything. Weill's impres-
reading Speak Low, it is ev-
sions of Hollywood: "This is
ident that these letters served
the most bourgeois hick town
as fuel for Weill's and Lenya's
I've ever seen: Everyone's gos-
work, their love and their
sipy, narrow-minded, jealous."
lives.
Lenya's personal philoso-
Speak Low 2180 serves as
phy:
"I've gat a very nice let-
chronicle of the lives of the
ter ... with a long paragraph
two. Kurt Julian Weill (1900-
about how unimportent (sic)
1950), the German Jewish
life is and how wonderful
son of a cantor from a long
death is. I don't know why,
line of rabbis, revolutionized
but I get terribly hungry,
musical theater and popular
when I read things like that.
music. His talents were de-
So I went to the kitchen and
veloped from an early age,
made myself coffee and felt,
The Letters of
and he made his "profession-
Kurt Itwi
there is nothing more beauti-
al debut" as an accompanist
ful than life." And their feel-
at age 16.
ings about each other, from
Soon after, Weill began to
Weill:
"The wonderful thing
incorporate his vision for a
is that I still have the same
new musical theater into a
reverence toward you as I did
"simple style" opera with
in the very first hour ..."; from
modern and classical influ-
Lenya: "One forgets in time
ences, while also addressing
how much one has become a
Speak Low (When You Speak Love) documents a
social and political issues.
part of the person one loves ...
love
affair
between
Kurt
Weill
and
Lotte
Lenya.
He would accomplish
and
then you know again and
these goals with Bertolt
are sure, that you wouldn't
Brecht in such works as Die but nonetheless eagerly sought
like to live without him."
Dreigroschenoper (The Three- out opportunities as they came.
Although there were questions
penny Opera) and Mahogonny
Early on, she was sent to live as to the status of their relation-
Songspiel, and later on American with an aunt for periods of time,
soil he collaborated with Paul and where she cooked and cleaned for ship, due to long separations and
Elizabeth Green, playwright a couple in exchange for dance the open extramarital affairs of
Maxwell Anderson and with lessons in the corps de ballet in both, the language between the
two is passionate and full of de-
writers Langston Hughes and Switzerland. That led to acting votion.
Speak Low is a lifetime of
Elmer Rice.
and singing parts in the theater. love letters between two highly
While working with Ira Gersh-
Well and Lenya first met at
win, he said: "Poor Ira! He real- an audition for one of Weill's creative, intelligent, gifted artists.
ly should be so grateful to me that works and later through a mu- Their passion for each other and
for life is apparent, and in these
tual friend. First living together, letters their fire burns bright. ❑
Tracy Karbel applies her
they married in 1926, divorced in
literary talents on the job at
1933 and remarried in 1937, the
Book Beat Bookstore.
— Tracy Karbel

FICTION

New Year's Eve

By Lisa Grunwald; Crown; $24.
When Grunwald's debut novel,
The Theory of Everything, ap-
peared, the New York Times said,
"Her poetic gift for language, her
sympathy for her characters and
her knowledge of how their emo-
tions grow, shift and collide all
work together to help realize the
large ambitions of this novel."
Now, in her third novel, Grunwald
continues an exploration of the
psyche with this part-contempo-
rary family drama, part-ghost sto-
ry of a child's death, a parent's
decline and other rites of passage.

-.

101/
VAN•111

1,

and

Rine H. KAvaike

teries throughout France. A
small time thug during the Vichy
regime, he had committed crimes
against Jews, was convicted for
crimes against humanity and
was later pardoned by France's
president, which in turn causes
a national outcry.

NONFICTION

Thinking Passover: A Rabbi's
Book of Holiday Values
By Ben Kamin; Dutton; $16.95.
"What significance does
Passover have, if not to keep our
memories alive?' asks Elie Wiesel.
Rabbi Kamin — senior rabbi at
Temple-Tifereth Israel, a 145-
year-old Reform congregation
in Ohio — does not offer the
typical supplemental manu-
al on the seder. Instead, he
deals with the subjects of
Passover: from hunger to ed-
ucation to community sharing
in chapters such as Matzah
and Memory, From Moses to
Martin Luther King Jr., and
Biblical America: Our Own 10
Plagues.

Memories of Summer:
When Baseball Was an
Art, and Writing About It
a Game
By Roger Kahn; Hyperion;
$23.95.
The period from 1947 to
1959 may not have been the
Lisa Grunwald explores one family in her
golden age of baseball, but it
novel New Year's Eve.
may well have been that of
sportswriting.
This Nervous Breakdown Is
The son of the founder of the
Driving Me Crazy
radio show "Information, Please,"
By Annie Reiner; Dove Books; Kahn combined his study of po-
$19.95.
etry and a means of paying the
The daughter of writer/direc-
tor/comedian Carl Reiner and sis-
ter of director and actor Rob
Reiner, Annie Reiner follows up
numerous collections of poetry
with this debut collection of short
stories. She's said about her writ-
ing, "I hope people could be a lit-
tit opened up to the mystery that's
there in the unconscious. It does
41111111111111111111F
require a certain openness of
mind, openness to a world and a
viewpoint that's chancy and
strange."

The Statement
By Brian Moore; A William Abra-
hams Book 1 Dutton; $22.95.
A fast-paced classic thriller,
Moore's 18th novel has been
ranked as one of his best. Pouliot
has found refuge for 44 years in
various Roman Catholic monas-

BEN

AMIN

Rabbi Ben Kamin gives deeper meaning
to the reality of today's life through the
history of the Jewish people in Thinking

Passover.