Following his acclaimed recording of Kurt Weill’s Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2 and excerpts from The Silver Lake (BIS-2579), HK Gruber and his inspired partners, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, present three more works by the great musical theatre composer, this time featuring sopranos Wallis Giunta and Jennifer France and violinists Katerina Andresson and Benjamin Herzl.
The release opens with the ballet-chanté satire The Seven Deadly Sins, a scathing critique of capitalist society that highlights the perpetual struggle between money and morality. Anna, a young girl, is sent away from her family with the mission of bringing back enough money to build a house on the Mississippi. The cantata The New Orpheus, which blends the very different styles of aria and song, tells the sad story of a singer who sets out to conquer the dreary walls of modern cities to save Eurydice, and with her, all of humanity. Finally, the Concerto for Violin and Wind Orchestra, a central work from Weill’s early creative period, displays a theatricality that heralds the stage works to come.
An exciting programme that showcases Weill’s inimitable language, mixing the sophisticated and the popular, the melodic and the dissonant, the complex and the streetwise.
