It is always a great shame when composers are denied the opportunity to hear their works performed during their lifetime – as happened to Anton Bruckner, whose Sixth Symphony was not performed in public until three years after his death, with Gustav Mahler as conductor. In the meantime, however, the symphony has become a core work of the late-Romantic repertoire. For this performance by the Berliner Philharmoniker, Herbert Blomstedt, one of today’s eminent Bruckner exponents, occupies the conductor’s rostrum. 

Blomstedt’s last Berlin concert in April 2008 also included a work by Bruckner – his Fifth Symphony. The Berliner Zeitung wrote: “There was an even more magnificent orchestral sound than usual, an elastic power that sustains every fortissimo and appeared able to better it at any time, but also depicts the harmonies with tremendous clarity: the dissonant chords that Bruckner throws at us every now and then were seldom so provocatively displayed as here. Blomstedt’s feeling for silence on the one hand and for precisely graduated frenzy on the other took one’s breath away and demonstrated the serene grandeur of the 80-year-old conductor.” 

This evening’s performance of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto gives us the opportunity to make the acquaintance of two musicians from the body of the orchestra in the role of soloists: 1st Concertmaster Daniel Stabrawa and 1st Principal Cellist Ludwig Quandt. Our third soloist is the young pianist Martin Helmchen, who is making his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker this evening.