Kurt Weill and his haunting song ” The Ballad of the Soldier’s Wife “
Recently someone asked for the score of a Kurt Weill song, " The Ballad of the Soldier's Wife ". While lyrics are easy to find using basic Google or other online internet based searches, sheet music and piano vocal scores are harder to find online. This is where the 40,000 music scores in the Performing Arts Department can often help in conjunction with our online catalogue and the department's Song Index card catalogue.
When I did a search in the catalogue for "The Ballad of the Soldier's Wife" and Weill only one record shows up (did you know we still have about 17,000 records and also several record players to listen to LPs at the Toronto Reference Library?).
A CD by Teresa Stratas also comes up if you enter the German title "Und was bekam des Soldaten Weib". When you are searching for song titles by Kurt Weill, who wrote originally in German, it sometimes helps to search the German title as well as any variations of the English title, eg. "The Ballad of the Nazi Soldier's Wife".
Not able to find a score by searching the Library's catalogue I turned to the in house Song Index that is available only at the Performing Arts Department of the Toronto Reference Library. Searching under the English title no works came up.
But searching under the German song title there was a reference to the song score in the book The Unknown Kurt Weill – although the lyrics are only in German. The contents of this book are not available through the online library catalogue so the only way to access it is to use the Song Index.
There are many versions of this song – I hope you find one you enjoy.
- a rap punkish rock version in Polish by Kazik Staszewski
- the Marianne Faithfull version
- the P J Harvey version is popular online
- there are many amateur / semi professional versions that you can listen to
6 thoughts on “Kurt Weill and his haunting song ” The Ballad of the Soldier’s Wife “”
Excellent info! Thanks
Thank you so much. Coincidentally, I just bought this book a few moments ago, for “Tango Youkali” – so I’m delighted to hear the score is in it for this one too.
I don’t suppose you have any info on the sheet music for an Edith Piaf song which starts, “C’ést a Hambourg, a Santiago, a White Chapelle ou Bornéo … ” It’s a prostititute song, but not one of her usual ones, and I can’t find it anywhere. Helena
Hi – thanks for looking at our blog – glad you liked this post.
I think the Edith Piaf song you are looking for “C’est a Hambourg” is in the following 2 collections:
Un siecle de chansons francaises 1949-1959
http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/search.jsp?Ntt=Un+siecle+de+chansons+francaises+
This is a multi-volume french music / song set arranged by decade – extensive song lists – really interesting and obscure repertoire
or
Piaf, Edith – Grands interprètes: Edith Piaf”
http://www.partitura.be/Data/groups/p_songbooks.html
Enjoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7aMPnuGVoA
Bill
Ben Bagley did two (I think) CDs as “Ben Bagley’s Kurt Weill Revisited I and II.” Ellen Burstyn sings this song beautifully on one of them. The lyrics are slightly different from the ones above.
I like A. J. Teshin’s version of it, from his album The Kurt Weill Project.
Precious information on Kurt Weill’s song.
Marianne Faithfull is magnificent!
Thank you,
Igor Stadnick