Programme Guide

When an orchestra goes on tour, it usually includes works in its programme which demonstrate the full range of qualities of its members. This concert with Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle in the National Concert Hall in Taipei from November 2011 is a particularly good example of this approach.

Maurice Ravel’s Alborada del gracioso, which opened the concert, is already highly demanding. Complex melodies, sophisticated solos, surprising changes: all need to be addressed with the greatest of ease to allow the Mediterranean fire of the music to smoulder. Subtle in expression, but no easier to perform, is Toshio Hosokawa’s Horn Concerto, which expresses a magical process through sound: the blossoming of a lotus flower. The work was commissioned by the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation and premièred in February 2011 at the Philharmonie in Berlin. The soloist then, as here, was Stefan Dohr, principal horn of the Berliner Philharmoniker since 1993.

The highlight of this guest performance is Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony, a work from the late Romantic period – the era in which the orchestra itself was founded in 1882. The orchestra’s interpretations of the music of this era have contributed significantly to the international fame of the Berliner Philharmoniker.