The Berlin Requiem (German: ) is a 1928 cantata for tenor, baritone, and choir of three male voices and orchestra by Kurt Weill to poems by Bertolt Brecht.John Fuegi Bertolt Brecht: Chaos, According to Plan 1987 0521282454 p.68 "These were: The Berlin Requiem (for radio, in collaboration with Kurt Weill)" The work had been commissioned by the who intended to broadcast the work on all its stations. However Brecht failed to abide by his contractual obligation to show the poems to the commissioning body for advance approval and the content, some of it a memorial to Rosa Luxemburg, led to several stations banning the performance.Peter Jelavich Berlin Alexanderplatz: Radio, Film, and the Death of Weimar Culture 2006 0520931645 p.119 "Indeed, despite his frequent public calls for freedom of expression, Heilmann once before had been a crucial swing voter regarding a controversial cultural work: the Berlin Requiem, a set of morbid poems by Bertolt Brecht set to music by Kurt Weil..."
Weill took a commission from Radio Frankfurt, producing the Berlin Requiem based on some of Brecht's poems. A specific theme of the chosen texts is the forgotten dead, "faceless war casualties, or victims of violent crime whose bodies are disposed of in an undetected location", according to one writer. Some of the musical portion is quite spartan, with, for example, much of "" accompanied solely by guitar.
Movements (Great Chorale of Thanksgiving) (Ballad of the Drowned Girl) (memorial tablet) (alternate to 3) (Epitaph 1919) (First Report on the Unknown Soldier) (Second Report on the Unknown Soldier) (To Potsdam under the Oak Trees) Source: AllMusic
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