(german: Das Berliner Requiem)
Small cantata for three male voices and wind orchestra (Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill) (1929)

The Berlin Requiem was commisioned by the Frankfurt Radio and completed by Weill around the first month of 1929. Weill, who closely followed the development of the radio technology as an editor/reviewer for the Der Deutsche Rundfunk magazine, created the musical score around several poems from Brecht's Hauspostille.
Weill's selection seems to be partly determined by the tenth anniversaries of the end of the First World War and the murder of the militant pacifist Rosa Luxembourg. After several postponements resulting from obligations (political/religious), the first performance took place in Frankfurt, May 22th, 1929.

Songlist
  1. Great Hymn of Thanksgiving/Großer Dankchoral
  2. Ballad of the Drowned Girl/Ballade vom ertrunkenen Mädchen
  3. Epitaph/Grabschrift
  4. Legend of the Unknown Soldier beneath the Triumphal Arch/Erster Bericht über den Unbekannten Soldaten unter den Triumphbogen
  5. Second poem on the Unknown Soldier beneath the Triumphal Arch/ Zweiter Bericht ü den Unbekannten Soldaten unter den Triumphbogen
  6. Great hymn of Thanksgiving/Großer Dankchoral.


Sources:
Jurgen Schebera - Kurt Weill
The Kurt Weill Foundation

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