Our October Recording of the Month is the Deutsche Grammophon debut of Joana Mallwitz, principal conductor of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin.

The orchestra was founded in 1952 in what was then East Berlin as a rival to the Berlin Philharmonic. As such, Mallwitz is the first woman to head up an orchestra in the German capital. A thoughtful musician with plenty to say, she’s chosen Kurt Weill’s two symphonies alongside his visceral theatre work The Seven Deadly Sins to launch her DG recording career.

Clive Paget caught up with her to ask why Weill, and what is it about his music that still speaks so powerfully to us today?

You chose Kurt Weill as a focus for your first season with Konzerthausorchester Berlin and also for your DG debut. Why Weill? 

I was just fascinated by his music, and especially when I discovered those two symphonies. They deserve to be known by so many more people and to be in the repertoire. Everything kind of fitted together with my start here with the Konzerthausorchester. Weill was from Dessau, but he came to Berlin as a very young person. He studied here with Busoni and he wrote his first symphony, when he was...