The Babylon-Suite is the concertante version of Widmann’s opera, which had a successful world première at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich in 2012. Instead of dealing with god’s punishment, Widmann and the librettist Peter Sloterdijk put the focus in Babylon on the chaos and the suffering in a world that is out of joint and on the realization of cocky people about the need of order in a heterogenic society. The music reflects this social diversity. The Babylonian confusion is for Widmann the basic concept of his composition. A variety of musical contrasts, simultaneity and layering but also diversity and cuts give the piece its form. In contrast there is the number seven, which orders and controls the musical system.

"Today I would say the sound of this city is similar to the sound nowadays: the next to one another and one above the other of many different cultures, peoples and regions bears a wild and fascinating simultaneity of high and low pathetic and sacred sounds in a trivial sphere. You can hear a linguistic confusion in the music, which could only be heard in Babylon and which can be heard today. I don’t know that Babylon sounded so much different." (Jörg Widmann)