Propheten

"Propheten was Kurt Weill's last completed work before he left Europe for the US, and also his last setting of a German text ... It is a grand work, called a Biblical Cantata, but it could just as well be an oratorio. A narrator functions as a mediator and in a way estranges the listener from the drama ... Anyway, [Weill's] music is strong, as are the orchestral and choral forces (two youth choirs and Wiener Motetten Chor), plus an impressive line-up of soloists, headed by the magnificent bass-baritone Albert Dohmen in the dual role of Jeremias and the Voice of Solomon. All the solo singing is on a high level ... The 'filler', the four Whitman settings from the 1940s ... Thomas Hampson at the height of his powers, sings them with Weill's own orchestral accompaniment. They are deeply emotional depictions of war - in this case, Whitman's experiences of the Civil War".

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"This is a recording of part of a grandiose project for which Weill wrote the music ... In German the work was titled Der Weg der Verheissung, The Road of Promise, but the English translation by Ludwig Lewisohn was retitled The Eternal Road. This received a stage production in New York in 1937 ... What we have here is the first complete commercial recording of the fourth and last part, Prophets in German ... The musical numbers are nearly all short and there is a great deal of spoken dialogue ... The performance is a good one, with Albert Dohmen taking the most important role, that of Jeremias, with a strong supporting cast, two choirs, strong orchestral playing and committed conducting by Dennis Russell Davies ... I think it is a curiosity, of considerable interest to Weill devotees ... but less so to others. As a filler we are offered Weill's Four Whitman Songs, sung in English by Thomas Hampson, an old Weill hand".

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