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Zubin Mehta conducts Bruckner and Messiaen
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Kirill Petrenko conducts Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov
Photo: Stephan Rabold
Rachmaninov's late-Romantic Second Symphony is filled with the wistful melancholy typical of the composer. Today it is one of the Russian composer’s most popular works, and the symphony also has a special significance for Kirill Petrenko: having chosen the Second for his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker in 2006, he conducted it again 15 years later as the orchestra’s chief conductor. It was preceded by Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet.
20 Mar 2021Berliner Philharmoniker
Kirill PetrenkoPyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Romeo and Juliet, Fantasy Overture after ShakespeareSergei Rachmaninov
Symphony No. 2 in E minor, op. 27- free
Interview
Emmanuel Pahud in conversation with Daniel Stabrawa
Semyon Bychkov and Lisa Batiashvili perform Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto
Photo: Lena Laine
With its its beguiling, heartfelt melodies, its captivating dance-like rhythms and its highly virtuosic solo part, Tchaikovsky’s opus 35 is considered the epitome of the Romantic violin concerto. Ideal for a violinist like Lisa Batiashvili, who – according to the Guardian – knows how to interpret this piece in an intense, radiant and heartfelt way. Semyon Bychkov, a long-standing associate of the Berliner Philharmoniker, also conducts Antonín Dvořák’s Seventh Symphony.
11 Mar 2021Berliner Philharmoniker
Semyon BychkovLisa Batiashvili
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D major, op. 35Lisa Batiashvili violin
Antonín Dvořák
Symphony No. 7 in D minor, op. 70- free
Interview
Lisa Batiashvili in conversation with Albrecht Mayer - free
Interview
Semyon Bychkov in conversation with Albrecht Mayer
Paavo Järvi and Igor Levit perform Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5
Photo: Frederike van der Stræten
Igor Levit describes Beethoven’s radiant E flat major concerto as a work that “makes you really happy”. Following Levit’s debut with the orchestra at the 2015 Easter Festival in Baden-Baden, he appeared for the first time with the Berliner Philharmoniker at the Philharmonie Berlin under the baton of Paavo Järvi. Another item on the programme is Prokofiev’s Symphony in E flat minor. Its opus number – a reference to Beethoven’s Piano Sonata op. 111 – reflects Prokofiev’s admiration for the First Viennese School composer.
06 Mar 2021Berliner Philharmoniker
Paavo JärviIgor Levit
Ludwig van Beethoven
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 5 in E flat major, op. 73Igor Levit piano
Sergei Prokofiev
Symphony No. 6 in E flat minor, op. 111- free
Interview
Paavo Järvi and Igor Levit in conversation - free
Interview
Paavo Järvi in conversation with Raphael Haeger
“The Golden Twenties”: Christian Thielemann conducts Hindemith, Strauss and Busoni
Photo: Frederike van der Stræten
Christian Thielemann presents three contrasting musical worlds during our online festival “The Golden Twenties”: that of Paul Hindemith, who brilliantly combined his music with jazz elements in his parodistic opera Neues vom Tage (News of the Day), that of Ferruccio Busoni, the bridge builder between Romanticism and Modernism, and the musical world of Richard Strauss, who cultivated a rich late Romantic musical language in his orchestral songs and the cycle Die Tageszeiten (The Times of Day).
27 Feb 2021
Online festival: The Golden TwentiesBerliner Philharmoniker
Christian ThielemannCamilla Nylund
Paul Hindemith
Neues vom Tage (News of the Day), Overture from the Opera with Concert EndingFerruccio Busoni
Tanz-Walzer for orchestra, op. 53Johann Strauss II
Künstlerleben, Waltz, op. 316Richard Strauss
6 Orchestral SongsCamilla Nylund soprano
Richard Strauss
Die Tageszeiten, song cycle for male choir and orchestra, op. 76Rundfunkchor Berlin
- free
Interview
Christian Thielemann in conversation with Oliver Hilmes
“The Golden Twenties”: A night at the Moka Efti
Photo: Frederike van der Stræten
One night in the legendary coffee house Moka Efti! Members of the Berliner Philharmoniker play dance music of the 1920s – foxtrots and shimmies, tangos and blues ballads. Kurt Weill is represented with three works, among them the Kleine Dreigroschenmusik. Stefan Wolpe’s Suite from the Twenties and Mátyás Seiber’s Two Jazzolettes reflect the jazz craze of the time. Between the works, Dagmar Manzel reads texts by Trude Hesterberg, Lotte Lenya and Josephine Baker.
23 Feb 2021
Online festival: The Golden TwentiesMembers of the Berliner Philharmoniker
Michael HaselDagmar Manzel
Introduction
Noah Bendix-Balgley
Kurt Weill
Berlin Lit Up · Panamanian SuiteDagmar Manzel singer
Josephine Baker: Memories
Dagmar Manzel narrator
Mátyás Seiber
Two JazzolettesTrude Hesterberg: What I was about to say
Dagmar Manzel narrator
Stefan Wolpe
Suite from the TwentiesLotte Lenya: Getting to know Bertolt Brecht
Dagmar Manzel narrator
Kurt Weill
Little Threepenny Music
“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
