Limelight — May 2017

You’vejustrecordedadiscofWeimar-era

musicwiththeNexasQuartet,andit’s

settobecomeacabaretshowaswell.

Howdidallthatcomeabout?

TobyChaddatABCClassicsandImetup

totalkaboutsomepossibilities,andthenI

came up with the Weimar idea – something

Ithoughtwasabitdifferent.Withthe

number of composers and the amount

ofmusicfromthatperiodthatisstill

neglected–andwhichisfabulousstuff,

bytheway–Ithoughtitcouldactually

be commercially viable if it’s marketed

properly.It’sthesortofmusicthatcango

down as easy listening, but it can also be

filed under classical because we’ve chosen

someofthatstuffaswell.Thecabaret

ideafollowedon.OnceIstartedlooking

atthewholeperiod,IthoughtI’dwritea

little 70-minute show for myself and the

saxophonequartetwhereeachofusisa

composer. One is Eisler, one is Kurt Weill,

oneisBertBrecht,etc.andwetalkabout

what was going on at the time and play

musicthattiesinwithallofthat.

Germanyinthe20sand30swasareal

meltingpotwherethedividebetween

classical and popular music – particularly

jazz–becamefascinatinglyblurred.Asa

young singer, were you drawn to this music?

Igrewupdoingtheamateurmusicalsthing,

soIwasawareofalltheKurtWeillstuff.

Andasayoungsinger,Cheryl[Barker]

haddonesomethinginThe Threepenny

Opera,soIsortofknewthattoo.Ialways

thoughtitwasfunandcool,butIwasoff

doing loads of Mozart or whatever, so

coming back to it now has been fantastic fun.

Whoforyouarethemostinteresting

composersfromthatera?

PeoplelikeSchreker,Korngoldand

Zemlinsky were major composers – I’m

singing Zemlinsky’sSong of the Cotton

Packer–andearlySchoenberg,too,before

hebacameaserialist.I’msinginghisDank,

whichwashisOpus1,Number1,with

foursaxophones,butwe’veaddedapiano

toit.I’malsodoingWeillandStolz,but

thebiggesteyeopenerformewasEisler.

Ireallydidn’tknowtheEislersongs.

They’reverypolitical.They’requite“I’m

thelittleperson,andwhogivesashit

about us?” – that sort of stuff. Like: “no-

onecaresaboutme–IhopeIhaveenough

moneytobuyacoffin.”Butthey’rereal.

They’ve got this sort of bite to them. They

are grungy and tough, but they’re also

really funky. I’m singing theStempelleid–

basicallyasongabouttheBenefitStamp

–andGruß an die Mark Brandenburg,which

is a glorious song. Later, Eisler went to

Hollywoodwherehewrote40filmscores,

but they threw him out in the end and he

woundupbackinEastGermany.

Whodoyouthinkhavebeenthemosthard

done by of all these classical musicians?

Youknow,themoreIreadaboutSchreker,

he was the one who was treated the worst.

Everybody at that time thought he was

goingtobethegreatestofallofthem.

TheNazisjusthatedhim.HewasJewish,

and he became the head of the Vienna

Hochschule, but they got rid of him and

then he just disappeared. We all know

the operaDer Ferne Klang,buthewrote

something like 300 songs. For the album

PETER COLEMAN-WRIGHT

AstheWeimarRepubliccollapsedinchaos,theNazisslippedintopower.Clive Pagettalks to one of

Australia’s great singing actors about turning the music of the era into a cabaret show and a new CD

IsingDie Rosen und der Flieder(The Rose

andtheLilac).It’swhatI’dcallaslightly

relaxed version of Mendelssohn, but it’s

averyprettysong.Isupposepeoplelike

SchrekerandEislerfellintothe cracksat

atimewhennobodycared.

WhatWeilldoyousing?Andwhatdoyou

thinkpeoplelikeheandEislerwerehoping

to achieve by writing this kind of music?

I’mdoingsomesongsliketheBallad of the

Pleasant LifeandMack the KnifefromThe

Threepenny Opera, but also some comic

stuff, likeTchaiko vsk y,whichisatongue-

twister from his musicals period. Both

Brecht and Weill wanted to put

theirfingersuptothebourgeois.They

wantedtobethevoiceofthelittlepeople.

They said that they wanted to turn the

current political situation around and

completely defuse it, but in actual fact all

they did was ignite things even more.

BrechtandWeillhadparallelcareers,but

somehow they never properly coincided

again after Germany. Why was that?

They fell out, really. Weill went to America

with his wife, and Brecht became much

more of a political figure. He wanted to

actuallybangthatdrum,whereasIthink

Weillthoughttherewasnothingmorehe

could do. Weill became quite afraid. He

leftGermanythinkingitwastimetogo

anddosomethingelse,whereasBrecht

decided he was going to carry on with

his philosophy. That was the core of him

andthatwaswhohewas.InAmerica,I

think,Weillfoundaneaseofexpression

that he didn’t have or that he couldn’t use

58 LIMELIGHT MAY 2017 http://www.limelightmagazine.com.au

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