A New Edition of Die Dreigroschenoper: Challenges, Principles, and Solutions

Stephen Hinton
Notes, 2nd Ser., Vol. 56, No. 2. (Dec., 1999), pp. 319-330.
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A N E W E D I T I O N OF DIE DREIGROSCHENOPER

CHALLENGES, PRINCIPLES, AND SOLUTIONS

CHALLENGES

Principal among the challenges facing the editors of Die Dreigroschenoper has been a task that the composer himself identified but which neither he nor his publishers ever completed. In a letter dispatched to them
a week after the work's premiere, Weill explained that he was "still busy
completing the score following the experiences of the current production." Part of that job involved, as he pointed out, "matching the vocal
score exactly with the stage script."' Trying to satisfy the conflicting
claims of precision and haste, he was occupied with three sources. The
first of these, the full score, was ostensibly a holograph in his own hand;
now, seventy years later, i t contains all kinds of addenda, mainly typesetting and performance markings, made by other hands.2 After the
necessary revisions had been made, in a few cases as intercalations on additional sheets of manuscript paper, Weill eventually sent the entire manuscript to Universal Edition in Vienna with the understanding and hope
that it would soon be published. In the event, it did not appear in print
for another half c e n t ~ r y The
. ~ second source, the vocal score, differed
from the full score in two important respects: it was published within
Stephen Hinton is chairman of the Department of Music at Stanford University and a member of the
editorial board of the Kurt Weill Edition. This article forms part of the introductory essay to Kurt Weill,
DieDreigroschmoper, ed. Stephen Hinton and Edward Harsh, The Kurt Weill Edition, ser. 1, vol. 5 (New
York: Kurt Weill Foundation for Music; Valley Forge, Pa.: European American Music Corporation, 1999).
1. Weill to Universal Edition, 7 September 1928. Original items from the correspondence between
Weill and Universal Edition are held in the Wiener Stadtbibliothek. Photocopies of the complete correspondence are in the Weill-Lenp Research Center, series 41. The correspondence is quoted by permission of the Kurt Weill Foundation for Music and Universal Edition. All translations are by the author.
2. Kurt Weill, "Dreigroschenoper," holograph in black ink (predominantly) and pencil. Various markings in other hands include the engravers' in red and green pencil, Marc Blitzstein's in red pencil, and
Leonard Bernstein's in red and blue pencil. Housed in Sibley Music Library, Eastman School of Music,
Rochester, New York, from November 1997, on indefinite loan (Universal Edition-Kurt Weill Archives,
SC1998.4, ser. 1, box 3, folder 1). Previously kept by Universal Edition in their house archives from 1928
to 1976 (except during the period 1938-ca. 1945, when the score was hidden, and in 1952), in the
Wiener Stadt- und Landesbibliothek from 1976 to 1993, and in a bank vault, 1993-97. Published as Die
Lhergroschenoper: A Facsimile of the HolograPh Full Scme, ed. Edward Harsh, Kurt Weill Edition, ser. 4, vol. 1
(New York: Kurt Weill Foundation for Music: Valley Forge, Pa.: European American Music Corporation,
1996).
3. Kurt Weill, Die Lhergroschoper: Ein Stiich mrt Musak nach John Gay i "The B e g a r ? Opera" von Elisabeth
Hauptmann, hutsche Bearbeitung von B d Brecht, ed. Karlheinz F ~ s s l ,Philharmonia no. 400 (Vienna:
Universal Edition, 1972).

320

NOTES, December 1999

weeks of its completion, and its preparation for publication was done not
by Weill but by Norbert Ging01d.~As a result, the autograph vocal score
is in two quite distinct hands, Weill's and Gingold's. The third source,
the stage script, would also soon appear in print.5As with the vocal score,
this material was urgently needed for distribution to the many theaters
interested in performing what was turning out to be the hit of the season.6 As Weill pointed out, however, these three principal documents of
the work did not match. Nor did his efforts, either before or after the
premiere, wholly resolve the discrepancies between them.
Apart from identifying one of the principal challenges facing this edition, Weill's remarks touched on another issue with far-reaching philological implications. In saying that. he was "following the experiences of
the current production," he was responding to a query from his publishers, who had anxiously enquired about the whereabouts of "the score of
Croschenoper;" as they called it.'As suggested by Weill's reply, the work was
not finalized before it went into production, but continued to evolve
during rehearsal and even after opening night. This raises a basic question that hardly admits of a simple answer. What is the relationship between the various textual sources Weill mentions, on the one hand, and
what was actually going on in that first and legendary production, on the
other? The answer to this question is complicated in the extreme, bringing into play as it does notjust questions of philological method, but also
additional sources: the rehearsal scripts, which document aspects of the
production process, and the surviving band parts used by the instrumentalists of the Lewis Ruth Band.8 Additional materials include recordings
4. Vocal score, holograph and manuscript (production master for first edition, much of it in Weill's
hand) in black ink (predominantly) and pencil. Housed in Sibley Music Library, Eastman School of
Music, Rochester, New York, from November 1997, o n indefinite loan. Previously kept by Universal
Edition in their house archives from 1928 to 1976 (except during the period 1938-45), in the Wiener
Stadt- und Landesbibliothek from 1976 to 1993, and in a bank vault, 1993-97. First edition of published
vocal score: Kurt Weill, Die Dreigroschmoper (The Beggar? Opera): Ein Stuck mit Musik in einem Vwspiel und
ncht B i k h nach dem Englischen &s John Gay, iibenetzt von Elisabeth Hauptmann, deutschc Bearbeitung von Bert
Brecht, Klavierauszug mil Text von Norbert Gingold (Vienna: Universal Edition, 1928).
5. Kurt Weill, Die Dreigroschmoper (The Beggar's Opera): Ein Stuck mit Musik in e i n m Vorspiel und acht
Bildrrn nach dem Englischen cles John Gay, iibersetzt von Elisabeth Hauptmann, dezltsche Bearbeitung von Betl
Brecht (Vienna: Universal Edition, 1928). There were three printings: October 1928 (300 copies),
November 1928 (500 copies), and December 1929 (500 copies).
6. The genesis and reception of Dz Dreigroschenoperare described in detail in Kutl Weill: The Threepenny
@era, ed. Stephen Hinton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
7. Cable from Universal Edition (Vienna) to Weill (Berlin), 6 September 1928.
8. There are two surviving rehearsal scripts. O n e belonged to the director, Erich Engel, the original of
which is housed in the Akademie der Kcnste, Literatur-Archiv; a photocopy is in the Bertolt-BrechtArchiv, 2104/1-83. The other surviving script belonged to o n e of Engel's assistants, Julius Halewicz, the
original of which is also housed in the Akademie der KGnste, Literatur-Archiv; a photocopy is in BertoltBrecht-Archiv, 2106/01-148. The original band parts used for the premiere and during the work's initial
run are in the hands of Frau Loni Mackeben, second wife of Theo Mackeben, leader of the Lewis Ruth
Band. The instrumental parts are handwritten. The original pianwonductor score, however, has not
survived, only a marked-up copy of the later engraved pianwonductor score, published in OctoberNovember 1928.

A New Edition of Die Dreigroschenoper

32 1

by those musicians and members of the original cast. Nor can one totally
ignore later revised versions of the piece (even those in which Weill had
no hand), aspects of which can be traced back to the production at
Schiffbauerdamm."All of these sources will be described in detail in the
critical report, to be published in a separate volume.)
Some of the revisions, Weill goes on to explain, had to do with his having written down "certain things for the published edition that I could
simply communicate to the musicians by word of mouth."1 Both the
stage script and the score represent necessarily imperfect attempts at
capturing a work whose genesis was intimately bound up with a particular production, and which would continue to change during that production's run. With all the discrepancies between them, both of these
sources transmit a version of a work that may never have been presented
exactly as indicated by these fixed written forms. As the band parts amply
reveal, neither does Weill's score, nor do the band parts themselves precisely reflect what the musicians were playing. And although, on several
levels, the stage script published in 1928 indicates better than any other
single document the version being presented in the theater in the initial
weeks after opening night, we know from several sources that the performances departed from this version in various ways and to varying
degrees-sometimes quite substantially-mainly because of cast changes,
but also because live theater permitted, even required, such flexibility.
If the published stage script does not document exactly the Berlin performances, it was certainly intended by the authors to form the basis for
the transmission of the piece in numerous productions over the next few
years, and indeed it did. The same goes for the published band parts,
which were extracted from Weill's holograph score. Errors inevitably
crept into all of these sources, but the intention remained: to match the
verbal with the musical sources. For the new edition, which presents music and text together for the first time, this original intention became an
imperative. Ostensibly, the edition seeks to match the same sources that
Weill did. Each of these has its strengths and weaknesses; none has absolute authority over the other. The nature and degree of their authority
differs in each case, depending on their purpose. Because Weill worked
on words and music separately, there is no one "principalv-still less a
"primaryv-source.
The revised stage script, published in an initial print run of three hundred copies in October 1928, reflected a collaborative attempt by Brecht
9. Bertolt Brecht, Versuche 8-10, vol. 3, Die Dreigrorchmopn; Der Dreigroschmjlm, Der Dreigroschmpou~
(Berlin: Custav Kiepenheuer Verlag, 1931).
10. "AuBerdem muBte ich manches, was ich bei den hiesigen Musikem nur anzusagen brauchte, fGr
die gedruckte Ausgabe erst fixieren." Weill to Universal Edition, 12 September 1928.

322

NOTES,

December 1999

and Weill to establish a commonly accepted sequence of numbers as well

as various other textual details, something the full score did not do. Yet
not all of the revisions indicated by Brecht and Weill found their way
into the final published version, as can be seen from the prepublication
materials that have survived, including the production master and a set
of proofs, both of which have copious handwritten annotations in the
two collaborators' hands." Apart from establishing the mutually agreed
sequence of the musical numbers and the places at which those numbers
interrupt the spoken dialogue, the published libretto also reflects a consensus between the authors as to which number should be sung by
whom, even if the production itself and some of the other sources contradicted these designations. Numbers changed ownership in the theater, depending on the cast, and some numbers were temporarily cut
altogether, either to save time or because of technical limitations on the
part of the singer; in one case ("Die Ballade von der sexuellen Horigkeit") a number was cut because of moral objections.
As far as it is reconstructable, which is quite far, the work's genesis reflects a balancing of creative intentions and practical concerns. "Barbarasong" and "Arie der Lucy" are two quite distinct cases in point. Even
though Polly did not always sing the "Barbarasong" in the theater, she is
unequivocally assigned it both in the score and in the libretto.12 Earlier
sources reflect actual practice early on in the run in giving it to Lucy.
"Arie der Lucy," on the other hand, was never reinstated after it had
been cut. The practical consideration-the fact that the actress Kate
Kiihl did not possess, as Weill put it in an explanatory article, the "good
vocal abilities" of the actress for whom the part was originally conceived-influenced the ultimate shape that the work assumed in the
published libretto.lS Weill later remarked to his publishers that the aria
"could not be included because otherwise the part of Lucy would always
have had to be played by a singer."14 By this he meant a trained opera
singer capable of coloratura as opposed to the kind of all-round actorsingers who can otherwise tackle many of the parts of the work. This is
11. Both of these sources are housed at Sibley Music Library, Eastman School of Music, Rochester,
New York, o n indefinite loan since 1997; they were formerly held in the archives of Universal Edition
(L 1 UE 548).
12. See Kim H. Kowalke, "ln Trivial [ ? ]Pursuit: Who Sings the 'Barbarasong'?" Kufi Weill Newsletler6,
no. 2 (1988): 8-11.
13. Kurt Weill, Musik und Theater: Gesammelte Schriflen, ed. Stephen Hinton and Jlirgen Schebera
(Berlin: Henschelverlag Kunst und Gesellschaft, 1990), 108; the text originally appeared in
"Anmerkungen zu unseren Bildern," Die Musik 25 (1932): 128.
14. "[Elin noch ganz unverdffentlichtes und unbekanntes Stlick . . . , das seinerzeit flir die
Dreigroschenoper geschrieben w r d e , aber dann nicht aufgenommen werden konnte, d a sonst hberall
die Rolle der Lucie [sic] mit einer Singerin hitte besetzt werden mhssen. Es handelt sich um eine parodistische Arie. Das Manuskript befindet sich hier bei mir." Weill to Universal Edition, 26 August 1932.

A New Edition of Die Dreigroschenoper

323

not to SAY, however, that the later sources necessarily supersede the earlier ones in every detail. Many of the discrepancies between the sources
arose not because of changes made by the authors but because of carelessness or oversight. The abiding challenge to the editors has been for
them to judge where such lapses appear to have occurred.
While some of the sources establish the broader outlines of the piece,
others more reliably furnish particular details. In general, one would
tend to privilege Weill's holograph over the hastily scribbled band parts
or a single contemporaneous recording. The edition, like Weill's own
score, serves the purpose of transmitting a text intended for multiple realizations rather than documenting a particular realization of the same
(or at least a similar) text. The band parts in fact document multiple realizations, however sketchily. The score and published libretto, on the
other hand, are intended to "transcend" the original production while
closely, if not exactly, reflecting it. Nonetheless, there are instances
where both the band parts and early versions of the song texts reveal
shortcomings in Weill's holograph. The composer, under pressure from
his publisher to dispatch performance materials to Vienna for publication, was not infallible. No composer is. Again, this is a matter for editorial judgment. Was Weill intentionally or unintentionally departing from
the work as documented in the other sources? There are instanees of both;
the editors have had to decide which is the case. Moreover, Weill did not
attend to the overall sequence of numbers in the full score as he did with
the libretto. The story of the work's genesis, much of which can be reconstructed from the correspondence between the composer and his
publisher, shows that Weill submitted the individual numbers in batches.
And it is in that correspondence, which constitutes another indispensable set of materials, that the anomalies in numberings were resolved.
PRINCIPLES

Given the numerous decisions that have had to be made, in the large
and in the small, what are the principles informing the identity of the
work as presented in the new edition?
The first principle-by no means trivial or obvious-is that the work
can be transmitted as a score with (in the case of a work for the musical
theater) a matching libretto or book, as Weill intended. This principle
ultimately informs the entire edition, not just this volume. Die
Dreigroschenoper may be Weill's first stage work to be published without an
opus number, even though the composer initially identified his "Musik
zu The Beggar's Opera" separately as "op. 25" on the cover of the autograph vocal score. The ultimate absence of the opus number in the published vocal score may accurately reflect a shift in Weill's philosophy of

324

NOTES, December 1999

musical production, namely a partial retreat from the romantic reification of the musical work as a fixed and timeless "opus." Describing the
score as "Musik zu" may reflect two other things: the generic uncertainty
surrounding the piece, and a overly modest estimation of the music's
contribution, which turned out to be both substantial and decisive.
Nonetheless, the practice of fixing the work in notation as clearly and efficiently as possible, notwithstanding the labile nature of theatrical practice, remained. It is a practice that Weill never forsook throughout his
career, even if the exigencies of musical life obviated the publication of
the stage works as full scores or, in some cases, even as complete vocal
scores. In addition to collaboration on memorable productions, Weill
left a legacy of performance materials for works capable of transcending
their original theatrical incarnation-a legacy that this edition is committed to preserving.
The second principle derives from the fact, in which Weill colluded,
that performance practice necessarily affected and even undermined the
singularity and authority of the score, as his comment about "the experiences of the current production" suggests. Any edition needs to reflect
this flexibility as best it can. In the case of Die Dreigroschenoper, the relationship between the written sources and the actual first production is,
as mentioned, complicated in the extreme. The work, more or less fixed
as text, gives rise to multiple individual performances, just as any individual performance is one of a multitude of differing realizations. While the
printed edition is bound (in a twofold sense) to present one single version of the piece, closely reflecting the authors' combined intentions
from the period between the start of the production process and the end
of the composer's involvement, it also reflects in various ways the mutability of the work in production. The edition does not legislate any single
version or every detail of performance practice (how could it, even if it
wanted to?) so much as define the publishable parameters within which
performance of the work, as conceived by the authors, can take place.
The edition is thus both historical and critical.
The edition is historical in that it presents the work as conceived and
performed in a historically delimited period and in particular historical
circumstances, while reflecting through commentary and appendixes
some of the inevitable mutations the work went through as theatrical reality in performance. Obviously there are both practical and philosophical limitations imposed on how far any publication can or should go in
this endeavor. The abiding principle is nonetheless the first one mentioned: that the work is transmittable as text.
The edition is critical in that it utilizes critically all available sources
and additional materials, not just textual ones, while also inviting and ex-

A New Edition of Die Dreigroschenoper

325

pecting critical judgment from the user. (A critical edition will lose much
of its purpose if it is not used critically.) This edition is committed to
conveying the history of the work as text, while being intended for use in
critically informed performances. Its claims to being definitive do not extend to the expectation that henceforth all productions should be the
same. Neither does it legislate a single version of the work, which anyway
has never existed as such. Nor does it record any single performance of
the work. (The unlikely event that it either could or even does would be
merely fortuitous.) Besides, there is enough flexibility built into the
text-not only because of Weill's "ad lib." passages, but also because of
the possibility of reinstating cut numbers-that no two productions are
likely to be exactly the same.
SOLUTIONS

The actual version transmitted in the main body of the edition (the
singular version, that is, to which the editors have necessarily had to
commit themselves) is, in broad outline, the one intended jointly by
Weill and Brecht in their 1928 published libretto. The 1928 libretto is
rare among Weill's works in representing a version of the work that both
authors edited for transmission as a text that supersedes the first production in Berlin. What is more, the published libretto actually performed
its intended function for several years, prior to the work's suppression by
National Socialism, serving as the basis of rehearsal scripts of the piece
for countless German-language productions of the work for the five-year
period from 1928 to 1933.
Insofar as the printed libretto bears not only authorial but also historical authority, the new edition corresponds-at least as far as the verbal
dimensions of the work are concerned-to the guidelines for the latest
Brecht edition, the Gr@e kommentierte Berliner und Frankfurter Ausgabe, an
edition that "contains as a matter of principle the authorized and established [wirksam gewwdene] first editions."15 It diverges, however, from the
Brecht edition by using as its basis the first published text rather than
Brecht's substantially revised version published in the Versuche in 1931
and in whose creation Weill played no part.
Sources other than the libretto are relevant for three reasons. The first
is that all of Weill's musical-theater works call for editions that are synthetic. This particular edition, like all others in the series, has to synthesize the verbal and the musical sources. The second reason is that the
15. "Die Ausgabe enthllt grundsltzlich die autorisierten und wirksam gewordenen Erstdrucke."
Bertolt Brecht, Werke: G r o p kommentiole Berliner Frankfurier Ausgabe, ed. Werner Hecht e t al. (Berlin:
Aufbau; Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1988), 2:[475]. (The editorial policy for the entire edition is
printed similarly at the back of each volume.)

326

NOTES,December 1999

libretto is not infallible in matters of detail, as comparison of the sources

-including the publisher's proofs of the libretto-demonstrate~.An especially valuable source in this regard is the rehearsal script, which is
the closest surviving source to the one Weill used when composing most
of the music (if not that very source itself). The third reason is that the
libretto, although reflecting the longer-term textual transmission of
the work at the time, does not offer access to two aspects of the work that
this edition does: the portions of the work that were suppressed for publication for various reasons but which at some point either had been or
would be performed as part of the work in the theater, and those parts,
such as "Arie der Lucy," that Weill associated with the work by publishing
them later, but which never belonged to the work's performance history
during the period of his creative involvement.
The period from which the relevant sources are drawn lasted about six
months, from mid-June to the end of 1928, when the libretto was
reprinted. After this time, although there were a number of developments in the theater, none caused Weill to change his mind about how
the piece should be transmitted. A critical document here is his essay on
the suppression of "Arie der Lucy," written to accompany the number's
separate publication in Die Musik in 1932. In the essay, Weill mentions
one of the developments in the theater-a new scene, occasioned by a
cast change-but he does not seem to endorse it. He writes:
In a scene from the last act of Dreigroschenoper, Lucy, the daughter of the police chief, is sitting in her room expecting a visit from her rival, Polly. She is
concocting a sinister plan of murder. It was for Lucy's solo scene that the current aria was written-a counterpart, so to speak, to the "JealousyDuet" of act
2. It was possible to expand this jealousy monologue into a kind of vocal aria
because we had in mind for the Berlin premiere a performer with good vocal
abilities. Since the role was not cast as intended, however, the "aria" was cut.
It would have been cut anyway because in the course of rehearsals the whole
scene proved to be superfluous. Only in later revivals [Neueinstudierungen] was
the scene reinserted, this time without the aria, which was too demanding vocally for the performer playing Lucy.16
Although Weill's use of the expression Neueinstudierung in the sense of
"revival" could be seen to remove him from any active involvement, the
production to which he is referring was still, in fact, the original one, except that it had moved from the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm to the
Komddienhaus with some cast changes and with the cut scene reinstated. Playing Polly was Carola Neher, who had originally been cast in
the role but who had dropped out at the last minute. Lucy was still being

A New Edition of Die Dreigroschenoper

327

played by Kate Kiihl. According to a review by Herbert Jhering (published in the Berliner Borsen-Courier), the cast change occurred in May
1929, after the first en suite run at Schiffbauerdamm had finished the
previous month. (Jhering's review appeared on May 13.) Instead of
the aria, as Jhering reports, there was the "Ballade der Lucy," by which
he must mean the "Barbarasong," which Lucy had apparently been
singing all along, but which Polly had now appropriated. Although early
sources indicate Lucy's ownership of this "ballad," all published materials, including the libretto, give the number to Polly, albeit in an earlier
scene, as No. 9.
In his later "Anmerkungen" to the 1931 published version of the work
in the Versuche, which includes the reinstated scene under the title
"Kampf um das Eigentum," Brecht described it as an "interpolation for
interpreters of Polly who possess a talent for comedy," just as Lucy's aria
required a particular talent for virtuoso operatic singing." In all, then,
there are three reasons why the scene may have been cut: because it was
dramatically superfluous, because Lucy couldn't be expected to sing the
aria, and because Neher's initial replacement as Polly didn't possess a talent for comedy.
Weill seems to hold firm to the notion that the scene had become superfluous, despite what was being done in the revival at the Komodienhaus and despite Brecht's having included it in the 1931 Versucheversion.
If Weill indeed knew of Brecht's own revision, then his negative assessment of the newly interpolated scene's dramatic worth could be read as
implicit criticism of Brecht's revisionist enterprise.
The Viennese production around the same time, which Weill attended
and in which he seems to have had a hand, also departed from the published text. Norbert Gingold, the production's musical director, was the
editor of the published vocal score. Here, however, none of the Viennese
newspaper reviewers noticed any departure from the published materials, nor is it explicitly clear, even from Weill's correspondence, what was
being added.ls One can only guess. A few days before the Viennese premiere, which took place on 9 March 1929, Weill wrote to his publisher: "I
have discussed all details with Herr Martin [the director]. . . . A few numbers are being done that were omitted here, and even one that was not
included in the music." It is evident from this letter that the libretto and
17. "Diese Szene ist eine Einlage fitr solche Darstellerinnen der Polly, welche die Begabung der Komik
besitzen." Brecht, Versuche,3:240.
18. The reviews consulted are those by Felix Salten (Neue Fwie Presse, 10 March 1929); Friedrich
Lorenz and Elsa Bienenfeld (Neues WimerJounal, 10 March 1929); Ludwig Ullmann (WiaerAllgemeinr
Zeitung, 12 March 1929); Lothar Ring (Volks-Zeitung, 10 March 1929); Walther Schneider (Wimer MittagsZ t u n g , 11 March 1929); Ernst Decsey (h'eues Wimer Tag6latl. 10 March 1929); and Ferdinand Scherder
(Wimer Zritung, 12 March 1929).

328

NOTES,December 1999

vocal score never functioned-nor were ever expected to function-as

an exact document, a kind of published souvenir, of the premiere production. Among the most likely candidates for published numbers reinstated in Vienna is "Salomonsong," reprinted separately in Die Musik in
the same month as the Viennese premiere, presumably as publicity and
to compensate for its absence in Berlin. Another candidate is the
"Morgenchoral," which is crossed out in Mackeben's copy of the pianoconductor score. As for the number "not included" in the published
materials, Weill is probably referring to "Die Ballade von der sexuellen
Horigkeit," which was soon to find its way into the 1929 Song-Album,
where it is described as being "originally from Die Dreigroschenopm"l9
The suppression of "Die Ballade von der sexuellen Horigkeit," as with
"Lucy's Aria," had to do with the performer in the Berlin production. It
was not that the actress playing Mrs. Peachum (Rosa Valetti) was technically incapable of singing her ballad, however, as was the case with Lucy
and her aria. She simply refused on moral grounds, because of the text.
The work subsequently evolved without it, and following Weill's explicit
instructions, his publishers left it out of the first edition of the published
vocal score. Nor was the number included in the published libretto.
Should the number therefore be reinstated in the edition? In a sense it
is, thanks to its inclusion in the appendix. Productions are free to use it,
should they so wish, just as Weill did in 1929, both in Vienna and in his
Song-Album. To place it in the main body of the text, however, would be
to distort the predominant, "historical" form in which the work existed
during its first run. Its position in the appendix nicely reflects its original
status as text: existent but scarcely used, available (to those in the know)
but not prescribed. The number was not reinstated in print until
Brecht's 1931 revised edition in the Versuche;it rejoined the printed music in the second edition of the vocal score, published in 1956, six years
after Weill's death.
Although Weill's holograph full score possesses substantial musical authority, it has proved fallible in numerous matters of detail. The question
of numberings, mentioned already, is a case in point. That of underlay is
another, Sometimes Weill omits underlay in this source altogether. While
the published vocal score is generally reliable, discrepancies between this
source and the published libretto are numerous. Again, resolution of the
discrepancies in many cases required critical intervention on the part of
the editors. Occasionally, however, neither of these sources has prevailed; instead others, such as the rehearsal scripts, have presented more
convincing readings.
19. Kurt Weill, Sag-AOum, Grsnng und K1avk-r (Vienna: Universal Edition, 1929).

A New Edition of Die Dreigroschenoper

329

One of the more substantial revisions arising from the necessity of filling in underlay missing from Weill's holograph full score occurs in Mr.
and Mrs. Peachum's "Anstatt-daB Song." Mr. Peachum has acquired a
new last line-or rather, the one he was presumably intended to have all
along. Deprived of words for this line in the full score, in subsequent
musical sources he acquired the same line as Mrs. Peachum. However,
given that his previous words diverge from those sung by his wife, and
given that a divergence in the last line is documented in other textual
sources, including the published lyrics from 1929, the new (or rather
original) version provides a dramatically more satisfying solution to the
blank left by the composer than the one normally transmitted. Mrs.
Peachurn proves susceptible to the same "pile of sensuality" which, according to her husband, their daughter Polly embodies, especially the
kind expressed in romantic cliches ("Wenn die Liebe anhebt und der
Mond noch wiichst" [When love is on the rise and the moon still
grows]). For his part, Mr. Peachum, the piece's (a)moral spokesman,
cynically sees through such sentiments ("Wenn die Liebe aus ist und
allein du verreckst" [When love has ceased and you perish on your
own]). Occasionally, of course, Weill's underlay departs from other
sources, but these departures are clearly intentional and have to be preserved for musical reasons. In all cases, the critical apparatus provides
documentation of editorial activity.
Unlike other critical editions, this edition does not make it possible to
reconstruct in every detail all the principal sources used. Nor, in some
cases, would the documentation that would permit such reconstruction
be either practicable or desirable. This obstacle reflects the nature of several of the sources in that they do not reflect any single version of the
piece so much as a collection of materials that have accrued over a period of time. This applies especially to the band parts, but also to the full
score, with its various layers in other hands.
The most vivid example of documented change in performance is provided by the most famous number of all, "Die Moritat von Mackie
Messer." The band parts do not reproduce this number as completely or
as clearly as they do any of the other numbers. Each of the parts is, to
varying degrees, either unclear or incomplete-or both. Itself a lastminute addition during the final stages of the production process, the
"Moritat" was initially conceived for solo voice accompanied by barrel organ. In his full score, Weill simply notes "Nr. 2. Moritat (Brown) fiir
Leierkasten" (No. 2. Ballade [Brown] for barrel organ). Following this
description, on the same page, is the score of No. 3. Only after No. 3
does Weill present the full score of No. 2, intercalated on manuscript
paper of a type different from the one on which the surrounding music

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NOTES, December 1999

is notated. While the assorted hieroglyphics and annotations in the band

parts reflect No. 2's genesis even more graphically than the composer's
full score, none of the parts accurately reflects the full-score version,
which Weill committed to paper once the production was already in full
swing. As with all the other numbers, the original piano-conductor score
is missing from the band parts. The extant parts, such as they are, all
contain fairly informal indications of what the players either were playing or were expected to be playing; the scant information they transmit
includes, in several cases, the number of verses (usually six) and mention
of the solo instrument(s) featured in each. Although in his postpremiere version Weill scored the first two verses for harmonium (to be
played "in the manner of a barrel organ"), several of the parts indicate
that the barrel organ was retained during the first three verses, even
after the idea of including instrumental variations to accompany the subsequent verses had materialized. This number represents the most extensive example of Weill having written down "certain things for the published edition which I only needed to pass on to the musicians here by
word of mouth." And even then, the final version may well have differed
considerably from what the players were actually playing, just as they
must have spontaneously "ad-libbed" the instrumental entr'actes in various ways. (These instrumental pieces, likewise, are notated in the parts
in only rudimentary outlines. Reconstructions, as far as they are possible,
are included in the appendixes of the edition.) Interestingly, some of the
band parts of No. 2 show traces of the composer's own hand (where
"word of mouth" did not suffice), but these indications rarely amount to
a full part. Insofar as they reflect what the players were playing, the parts
must be seen as having served as scripts to multiple events, not just to a
single event, up to and perhaps including the recording of the music for
the 1930 film directed by G. W. Pabst.
For all the splendid documentary evidence the parts supply of the genesis and performance practice of this number, none of them is either
clear or complete enough to question, still less undermine, the authority
of the full score, or even to supplement it in any meaningful way, as is
the case with the other numbers. Nowhere is the gap between work and
event and between text and script as evident as in the "Moritat"-the
number that, more than any other, was to make its way in the world in incarnations quite different from the text of the full score.