Daniele Gatti’s journey from the Romantic to the modern era

In the “principle of the developing variation”, Arnold Schoenberg identified a fundamental element of Johannes Brahms’s compositional technique. With the Haydn Variations op. 56a, called thus though actually based on a chorale tune of unknown origin, Brahms composed a work in 1873 that can be regarded as a precursor to his First Symphony, premiered three years later. At the same time it already extends towards the final movement of Brahms’s last symphony from 1884/85, which is constructed as a passacaglia.

As Brahms’s musical antithesis, Richard Wagner is represented here with excerpts from Götterdämmerung, which was premiered at the first Bayreuth Festival in 1876. The programme also includes Alban Berg’s Three Pieces for Orchestra, premiered (partially) in 1923 by the Berliner Philharmoniker under the direction of Berg’s student friend Anton Webern. The work, which is dedicated to Berg’s “teacher and friend Arnold Schoenberg in immeasurable gratitude”, draws on the compositional rigour of Brahms’s compositions as well as Wagner’s instrumental refinements, but nonetheless marks the dawn of a new musical epoch.

Berliner Philharmoniker

Daniele Gatti