Yale Broadway Masters: Kurt Weill. New Haven: Yale University Press, 20xx.

FAIN: FT-56999-09

Joel Galand
Florida International University Board of Trustees (Miami, FL 33199-2516)

This monograph is a critical study of Kurt Weill's Broadway career (1936-1950). Two chapters present in-depth studies of single shows; others analyze compositional process and style, describe the subject's working methods with collaborators, and assess his historical and artistic legacy. Weill is best known among musicologists and literary critics for his work with such leading playwrights of Weimar Germany as Brecht and Kaiser; his American shows are far less documented. The book addresses not only music historians and theorists but also scholars of literature and theater, for Weill's American collaborators include many of the period's outstanding writers and directors. The book also contributes to cultural studies. Weill consistently defies long-standing distinctions between "high," "low," and "midcult." His shows provide a lens with which to view the cultural geography of the United States in the years during and surrounding World War II.