Weill: Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2; Lady in the Dark (Symphonic Nocturne)

CML call number: CD/CLASSICAL/Weill
Performers: Bournemouth Symphony, conducted by Marin Alsop.
Bernard Holland wrote in the New York Times: "The performances here are well organized, motivated and worth the trouble taken over them. The Second Symphony, from 1934, incorporates the captivating directness that makes Weill's stage pieces work. His unhurried, marchlike relentlessness is on display. The impression is of a wordless anthem in celebration of an unspoken cause. We hear Weill's momentum even when it is in hiding or undergoing subtle rhythmic transformation, as in the pervasive rhythmic tic of the slow movement. By rights, music by itself cannot invoke politics or any social cause. Why, then, do we hear this stirring and determined music and long to pick up a flag and march alongside? The First Symphony — sweaty, anxious and ambitious for bigness of sound and spirit — tells more about what Weill was in 1921 than about what he would become … A world and a lifetime away are the gentler curves and easygoing beauties of 'Lady in the Dark,' from 1940" ("Classical Recordings," 10/23/05).