9/27/25 (BONUS!): Wainwright, Weill, and Why Knowing Some History is Fun.
- john koenig
- Sep 26
- 4 min read
Updated: Sep 27
I was heading home Friday morning when my Spotify app serendipitously pulled up Rufus Wainwright’s new single, a cover of the popular jazz tune “Mack the Knife.” While Louis Armstrong recorded the song in 1955 and made it a jazz standard, few people who hear it might know that it was originally written by Kurt Weill (music) and Berthold Brecht (lyricist) for their Die Dreigroschenoper (Little Threepenny Opera). The genius of Wainwright’s new version is that he shows his knowledge about the song’s history and pays tribute it by opening his new cover with a version of the tune that is more faithful to it's operatic origins sung in German. In so doing, Wainwright sparked several connections in my head that I wanted to share.
Any reference to Die Dreigroschenoper takes me back to my master’s degree studies with Scott Boerma at Western Michigan University where I initially heard the music. Scott had programmed the Little Threepenny Music suite from the opera for our first concert with the university Wind Symphony. This suite is a collection of tunes from the opera scored for and ensemble of flutes, clarinets, bassoons, saxophones, trumpets, trombone, tuba, percussion, piano, accordion, guitar, and banjo and was commissioned by the conductor Otto Klemperer (a protégé of Mahler). This connects the Threepenny Music to a long tradition of opera transcriptions for chamber wind ensembles. Many of the hits from Mozart’s operas, for example, were transcribed for wind octet by Josef Triebensee and others (see below). In the 18th century, this was one of the only ways for people to become familiar with the music from an opera without attending a production. As operas began touring, these transcriptions became important ways to promote the “hits” from the opera before it came to town. I’d imagine Klemperer would have been aware of this tradition when he asked Weill for the transcription.
Weill, who was Jewish, fled from Germany to America in 1933 where the Threepenny Opera premiered on Broadway the same year with English translations by Mark Blitzstein. (Another WMU connection! Maria Cristina Fava, one of my professors at WMU, explored the contributions of Mark Blitzstein and others to art music activism in her 2024 treatise, see below.) That The Threepenny Opera was produced on Broadway opens the door for an entirely different exploration of the close connections between opera and Broadway musicals (but I’ll save that for later…).
But what does all this have to do with Wainwright’s new version? I think his attention to detail in the opening of his version betrays his awareness of the tune’s cultural as well as popular history. The Threepenny Opera was an updated version of an older piece, The Beggar’s Opera by John Gay (1728), and the operas both hold up mirrors to provide critiques of their contemporary societies. The Beggar’s Opera is a critique of 18th century England’s attitudes and culture surrounding opera whereas The Threepenny Opera is a critique of capitalist culture in the late Weimar Republic. This, of course, finds resonances with the popular 1966 Broadway musical Cabaret (you MUST listen to Weill if you like Cabaret, see below). While the social comparison of late Weimar Republic and modern America was not lost of the producers of the recent revival of Cabaret, I can’t help but wonder if Wainwright intended to invite a similar comparison by opening his version with a faithful throwback to the original operatic version of the tune.
Even if he didn’t intend to invite the social critique, opening the cover the way he does at least made my own listening experience much more enjoyable. While listening, I found myself wondering how great it would be if other peoples’ experiences with their favorite songs could be enriched with a little historical background. All this music, history, and social stuff is connected, and with modern technology, exploring those connections isn’t that hard. I encourage you, the next time you get a free moment, to do a little digging of your own into the background of some of your favorite tunes. What you find might surprise you and give you a refreshing perspective on some old favorites!
Rufus Wainwright and the Pacific Jazz Orchestra, “Mack the Knife”:
Kurt Weill, Berthold Brecht, Lotte Lenya, “Moritat von Mackie Messer”:
Kurt Weill, Berthold Brecht, English version by Mark Blitzstein, “The Ballad of Mack the Knife”:
Louis Armstrong, “Mack the Knife”:
Kurt Weill, Sir Simon Rattle, conductor, Little Threepenny Music: II. Mack the Knife:
John Kander, Fred Ebb, Joel Grey, Cabaret, “Wilkommen”: https://open.spotify.com/album/28qbOp4dEh18N5u6FInyOO?highlight=spotify:track:7AFy1aN1RQVgGOXzCtrK87
W. A. Mozart arr. Triebensee, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Don Giovanni: “La chi darem la mano”:
W. A. Mozart, Kathleen Battle, Samuel Ramey, Berlin Philharmonic, cond. Herbert von Karajan, Don Giovanni: “La chi darem la mano”:
Art Music Activism: Aesthetics and Politics in 1930s New York City by Maria Cristina Fava:
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