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“The Golden Twenties”: A night at the Moka Efti
Go to concertNew Year’s Eve Concert with Kirill Petrenko and Pablo Sáinz-Villegas
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“The Golden Twenties”: Thomas Søndergård conducts Prokofiev, Sibelius and Weill
Photo: Frederike van der Stræten
Kurt Weill’s The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny confronts us with the darker side of humanity and society. Written at the end of the 1920s, Weill wanted to create a work with this opera “that will deal with the utterly different expressions of life in our time in an appropriate form”. Thomas Søndergård, who is making his Berliner Philharmoniker debut, conducts compositions by Prokofiev and Sibelius in addition to the suite from the opera.
20 Feb 2021
Online festival: The Golden TwentiesBerliner Philharmoniker
Thomas SøndergårdSergei Prokofiev
The Love for Three Oranges: Suite, op. 33bisJean Sibelius
Symphony No. 6 in D minor, op. 104Kurt Weill
The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny: Suite (arr. Wilhelm Brückner-Rüggeberg)
“The Golden Twenties”: Marie Jacquot conducts the Karajan Academy
Photo: Christian Jungwirth
A film that was intended to shock and shake up its viewers: Kuhle Wampe (Empty Stomach) from 1932 depicts the bitter fate of a working-class family during the Great Depression. The music is by Hanns Eisler, who compiled a concert suite with a “best of” selection from the film. Music that was in step with the times: kinetic, exciting, stirring. Kurt Weill’s name is associated first and foremost with the Threepenny Opera. He worked in many different genres, however, as his Violin Concerto and Second Symphony demonstrate.
16 Feb 2021
Online festival: The Golden TwentiesScholars of the Karajan Academy
Marie JacquotHanns Eisler
Suite for Orchestra No. 3, op. 26 “Kuhle Wampe”Kurt Weill
Concerto for Violin and Wind Orchestra, op. 12Kolja Blacher violin
Kurt Weill
Symphony No. 2- free
Interview
Kolja Blacher in conversation with Oliver Hilmes - free
Interview
Marie Jacquot in conversation with Oliver Hilmes
“The Golden Twenties”: Kirill Petrenko conducts Weill and Stravinsky
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
Kirill Petrenko brings the 1920s to life again with an early work by Kurt Weill. The influence of Liszt, Mahler and Strauss on Weill can be heard in his rarely performed Symphony in One Movement. The music is captivating, brash and brilliant, but also features delicate, chamber music-like passages. We also hear Stravinsky’s opera-oratorio Oedipus rex, composed in 1927 and set in ancient Greece. Its music is crystal-clear neoclassicism – how could it be otherwise?
13 Feb 2021
Online festival: The Golden TwentiesBerliner Philharmoniker
Kirill PetrenkoMichael Spyres, Ekaterina Semenchuk
Kurt Weill
Symphony in One Movement (1st performance in the critical edition of the Kurt Weill Edition, editor: James Holmes)Igor Stravinsky
Oedipus rexMichael Spyres tenor (Oedipus), Ekaterina Semenchuk mezzo-soprano (Jocasta), Andrea Mastroni bass (Tiresias), Krystian Adam tenor (Shepherd), Derek Welton bass-baritone (Creon), bass (Messenger), Bibiana Beglau speaker, Men of the Rundfunkchor Berlin
- free
Interview
Kirill Petrenko in conversation with Martin Menking
Kirill Petrenko and Daniil Trifonov
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
“There’s this special moment when you truly feel the music and we all become one connected whole”, as Daniil Trifonov says enthusiastically in an interview for the Digital Concert Hall. Here he performs Sergei Prokofiev’s youthful and exuberant Piano Concerto No. 1 with Kirill Petrenko. Also on the programme: a world premiere by the Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdóttir, plus Josef Suk’s tone poem A Summer’s Tale, which combines Bohemian flavouring with shimmering Impressionism.
29 Jan 2021Berliner Philharmoniker
Kirill PetrenkoDaniil Trifonov
Anna Thorvaldsdóttir
Catamorphosis (première) – commissioned jointly by the Berliner Philharmoniker with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra – supported by the Friends of the Berliner Philharmoniker e. V.Sergei Prokofiev
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 1 in D flat major, op. 10Daniil Trifonov piano
Josef Suk
Pohádka léta (A Summer’s Tale), Symphonic Poem, op. 29- free
Interview
Anna Thorvaldsdóttir on her work Catamorphosis - free
Interview
Kirill Petrenko in conversation with Stefan Dohr
Daniele Gatti conducts Stravinsky and Shostakovich
Igor Stravinsky combines in his ballet Apollon musagète the cheerful light atmosphere of the classical era with the easy-going, urban lifestyle of the 1920s. Dmitri Shostakovich, on the other hand, composed his Fifth Symphony in 19th-century aesthetics of sound, ostensibly as a homage to socialism. But his music has a certain ambiguity: “The rejoicing is forced under threat,” the composer wrote. “One would have to be a complete fool not to hear that.”
23 Jan 2021Berliner Philharmoniker
Daniele GattiIgor Stravinsky
Apollon musagète (revised version from 1947)Dmitri Shostakovich
Symphony No. 5 in D minor, op. 47- free
Interview
Daniele Gatti in conversation with Aleksandar Ivić
Kirill Petrenko conducts Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov
Photo: Stephan Rabold
In this concert, Kirill Petrenko presents three passionate symphonic poems from Russia. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is represented by two tragic love stories: the fantasy overture Romeo and Juliet – the 29-year-old composer’s first masterpiece – and the fantasy for orchestra Francesca da Rimini. From Sergei Rachmaninov, a composer who is particularly close to Kirill Petrenko’s heart, we also hear his mysterious and sombre Isle of the Dead, inspired by Arnold Böcklin’s painting of the same name.
16 Jan 2021Berliner Philharmoniker
Kirill PetrenkoPyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Romeo and Juliet, Fantasy Overture after ShakespeareSergei Rachmaninov
Isle of the Dead, Symphonic Poem, op. 29Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Francesca da Rimini, Fantasy for Orchestra, op. 32- free
Interview
Kirill Petrenko in conversation with Dominik Wollenweber
Andris Nelsons and Seong-Jin Cho
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
“There are few poets at the piano today – one of them is Seong-Jin Cho,” was the verdict of Simon Rattle after the young Korean made his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker in 2017. In December 2020, he played Franz Liszt’s lyrical Second Piano Concerto under the baton of Andris Nelsons. His performance was framed by Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture and the momentous Fifth Symphony, which brought the Beethoven anniversary celebrations slowly to a close.
19 Dec 2020Berliner Philharmoniker
Andris NelsonsSeong-Jin Cho
Ludwig van Beethoven
Coriolan, Overture, op. 62Franz Liszt
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 2 in A majorSeong-Jin Cho piano
Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No. 5 in C minor, op. 67- free
Interview
Seong-Jin Cho in conversation with Kyoungmin Park
“Beethoven in close-up” – part 4
Photo: Christoph Franke
A feast for all Beethoven lovers: our streaming event “Beethoven in close-up” celebrates the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth with the performance of all his string quartets and other chamber music for wind instruments. The recordings of the concerts from the Chamber Music Hall of the Philharmonie Berlin were broadcast in the Digital Concert Hall between 14 and 17 December 2020, around the date of Beethoven’s anniversary. Part 4 is dedicated to the late string quartets op. 127 to op. 135.
17 Dec 2020
Chamber music eventMembers of the Berliner Philharmoniker
Late string quartets
