The New Grove (2001)

Kurt Weill
The final section of the Weill entry in the revised New Grove of 2001 is signed by J Bradford Robinson only. The previous sections are jointly signed by Robinson and Drew - the latter as author of the original 1980 entry, the former as author of a draft revision, prepared at the instigation of the editors prior to Drew's involvement. The collaboration on Robinson's revision did not, however, extend to his new conclusion, which replaced rather than merely updated Drew's 1980 version (entitled, notoriously, 'The Two Weills'). Drew's commentary on the history and text of the final section of his 1980 entry is currently being prepared for publication.

The above lines were written a year ago for the present website, without knowledge of a forthcoming and highly critical review of both New Grove articles (1980 and 2001) commissioned by the Kurt Weill Newsletter (editor, Elmar Juchem, publisher, The Kurt Weill Foundation for Music Inc). The review was published in the Fall 2002 issue of the Newsletter (Vol. 20/2). Key excerpts are given on this website under Annual Records, November 2002. The author, Tamara Levitz, is an Associate Professor of Musicology at the University of California at Los Angeles. Neither she nor the editors of the Kurt Weill Newsletter offer their readers an account of the highly questionable genesis of the so-called "revised" version of 2001. The fact that the revised Grove acknowledges the separate authorship of the final section is not mentioned by Levitz, and its implications are consequently ignored. As with the editorial processing of the revised Grove entry, the methodology of the Levitz review and the editorial production-requirements of the Newsletter appear to have precluded even the formality - let alone the courtesy - of prior consultation with the author of the original Grove entry.

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