Speak Low (When You Speak Love): The Letters of Kurt Weill and Lotte Lenya

Different workplaces often kept Austrian singer Lotte Lenya and her husband, composer and conductor Kurt Weill apart, but the two shortened the distance through lively, often humorous correspondence. An unlikely couple, Weill came from an upper-class family and long line of German rabbis, while Lenya was the daughter of a washerwoman and an abusive cabby father. He studied with such masters as Ferruccio Busoni and Arnold Schoenberg; she worked as a child prostitute, dancer; and then singer, without any formal training. Despite their differences and numerous affairs they had profound affection and devotion for one another as this collection of letters, with annotations, explanations, and references by the editors, attests.