Threepenny Opera

Kurt Weill, “Threepenny Opera” (MGM, 1952).
This belongs in “rock” as much as (if not more than) in classical. The guy sounds contemporary to Randy Newman, VanDyke Parks, or Tom Waits, all of whom he in fact influenced. This is razor-edged, pounding cabaret music shot through with overtones of post-Schönberg dissonance, a perfect musical equivalent for Bretcht’s black-humor lyrical take on amoral Weimar capitalism carving itself up to serve to the waiting Nazis.
Try A/7, A/12, B/2, B/4.
4/19/13