The Seven Deadly Sins

After his acclaimed recording of Kurt Weill's Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2 and excerpts from "The Silver Lake" (BIS-2579), HK Gruber and his congenial partner, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, present three more works by the famous music theatre composer, this time with sopranos Wallis Giunta and Jennifer France and violinists Katerina Andresson and Benjamin Herzl. The recording begins with the ballet-chanté-satire "The Seven Deadly Sins", a sharp critique of capitalist society that thematizes the eternal struggle between money and morality. Anna, a young girl, is sent away by her family with the task of earning enough money to build a house on the Mississippi. The cantata The New Orpheus, which combines the very different styles of aria and song, tells the sad story of the singer who sets out to overcome the desolate walls of modern cities to rescue Eurydice and, with her, all of mankind. The Concerto for violin and wind orchestra, finally, a central work from Weill's early creative period, shows a theatricality that is a harbinger of his later stage works. An exciting programme that lets Weill's inimitable language be heard, in which the refined and the popular, the melodic and the dissonant, the complex and the street-wise intermingle.