Kurt Weill - Death

Death

Weill suffered a heart attack shortly after his 50th birthday and died on April 3, 1950 in New York City. He was buried in Mount Repose Cemetery in Haverstraw, New York. The text and music on his gravestone come from the song "A Bird of Passage" from Lost in the Stars, itself adapted from a quotation from the Venerable Bede:

This is the life of men on earth:
Out of darkness we come at birth
Into a lamplit room, and then –
Go forward into dark again.
(lyric: Maxwell Anderson)

An excerpt from Maxwell Anderson's eulogy for Weill read:

"I wish, of course, that he had been lucky enough to have had a little more time for his work. I could wish the times in which he lived had been less troubled. But these things were as they were – and Kurt managed to make thousands of beautiful things during the short and troubled time he had…"

Read more about this topic:  Kurt Weill

Famous quotes containing the word death:

    “The Reverend Samuel Peters ... exaggerated the Blue Laws, but they did include “Capital Lawes” providing a death penalty for any child over sixteen who was found guilty of cursing or striking his natural parents; a death penalty for an incorrigible son; a law forbidding smoking except in a room in a private house; another law declaring smoking illegal except on a journey five miles away from home,...”
    —Administration for the State of Con, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    “And anyone is free to condemn me to death
    If he leaves it to nature to carry out the sentence.
    I shall will to the common stock of air my breath
    And pay a death tax of fairly polite repentance.”
    —Robert Frost (1874–1963)

    “Do thou but close our hands with holy words,
    Then love-devouring death do what he dare,
    It is enough I may but call her mine.”
    —William Shakespeare (1564–1616)