New York Philharmonic – Kurt Weill Centennial

Like his longtime collaborator, playwright Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill pooh-poohed elitist pretensions in the music world. ‘I have never acknowledged the difference between ‘serious’ music and ‘light’ music’, he once remarked, ‘There is only good music and bad music’. And Weill left us plenty of the former, in genres ranging from opera to jazz. His score to Brecht’s classic ‘Threepenny Opera’ left us such classics as ‘Mack the Knife’, best sung by his widow and muse, Lotte Lenya. Leonard Slatkin and the Philharmonic celebrate Weill’s 100th birthday with the world première of a new suite from his opera ‘Street Scene’, while a new trombone concerto from James Pugh and a suite from Leonard Bernstein’s opera ‘A Quiet Place’ complete the programme.