As I’m sure you’re well aware, today is tax deadline. You have through 11:59 tonight to post your pound of flesh to Uncle Sam, or to file an extension. This is all usually over and done with in April, but at the far end of a screwy year, when everything’s been off, why the hell not? Pay your taxes, and eat the rich.
In the meantime, here’s some Kurt Weill to take some of the sting out.
The last of September. My favorite Kurt Weill song? “September Song,” from “Knickerbocker Holiday.” Here’s Walter Huston in 1938. The lyrics are by Maxwell Anderson.
April 15th. Hopefully you aren’t feeling too overtaxed.
Whether you are daydreaming about a fat return or speculating about which ledge you should leap from, I hope you’ll join me this afternoon on The Classical Network for music about found and lost money, precious metals, careless spending, currency and coins, treasures sought, penury, and good old fashioned tax protest.
Lady Godiva rode naked through the streets of Coventry in protest of exorbitant taxation. On the other side of the coin, when told that her subjects had no bread, Marie-Antoinette is alleged to have responded, “Let them eat cake!” Both will be represented musically, in works by Vítězslav Novák and Franz Joseph Haydn.
We’ll seek treasure with Franz Schreker. We’ll look with sardonic befuddlement upon “The Age of Gold” with Dmitri Shostakovich. Antonio Salieri will show us what it is like to be rich for a day. Beethoven will rage over a lost penny. Franz Lehár will shower us with gold and silver. And we’ll gaze with envy upon Kurt Atterberg’s “Dollar” Symphony.
Of course, there will be music from “The Threepenny Opera,” by Kurt Weill. We’ll also hear Weill sing “Very, Very, Very,” from “One Touch of Venus,” which begins, “One way to be very wealthy is to be very, very, very rich…” You can’t argue with that.
Feeling a little depleted? Great music is always a sound investment, from 4 to 7 p.m. EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
September 1. Walter Huston sings “September Song,” in the Kurt Weill-Maxwell Anderson musical, “Knickerbocker Holiday,” in 1938.
While searching for something interesting to share for Antonio Vivaldi’s birthday, I happened across this YouTube video. The four musicians of Salut Salon create a musical narrative that carries them from Vivaldi to Weill.
More about Salut Salon here:
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