This album marks conductor
Joana Mallwitz
's debut on the
Deutsche Grammophon
label and her first with the
Konzerthausorchester Berlin
since assuming the leadership of that ensemble in 2023. It is an ambitious release -- it is not every day that a young conductor gets top billing on an orchestral release -- and
Mallwitz
delivers on her ambitions. The program consists of
Kurt Weill
's two symphonies, one from 1921 and one completed by
Weill
on the run from Nazi Germany and premiered in 1934 in Amsterdam, with the "ballet chanté" (or "sung ballet")
Die sieben Todsünde
in the middle. This work, with texts by
Bertolt Brecht
, is sung (and even danced) from time to time, but it is not exactly a common item, and it was an inspired choice by
. The idiom is that of
The Threepenny Opera
, with some variations (hear the old-school vocal quartet in the "Völlerei" movement) and a setting in the U.S. instead of London (there are two sisters, both named Anna (who may be the same person) and who travel to various cities).
gets an excellent performance, evocative of
Lotte Lenya
, from soprano
Katharine Mehrling
, who sings both Annas.
also brings the right Berlin cabaret edge to the two symphonies (for the
Second
,
declined to provide a program but said that a friend in Paris had opined that if there were a word that meant the opposite of "Pastoral," it could provide a title for the work). She also catches the distinctly threatening tone of the
Symphony No. 2
, the sense that the whole liberal project was falling apart. The
Konzerthausorchester
sounds great in its own hall under
's engineering. Are listeners to this album hearing the beginnings of a star conducting career? It sure seems like it. This release made classical best-seller charts in the summer of 2024. ~ James Manheim