Living with Beethoven
The performance of all of Beethoven’s symphonies in the autumn of 2015 was a high point in the collaboration of the Berliner Philharmoniker and its chief conductor, Sir Simon Rattle. The film Living with Beethoven accompanies the ascent of this “Mount Everest” (Rattle) with many views behind the scenes. The conductor and orchestra musicians all contribute, clearly inspired by the desire to make the often performed works sound again as if they were just written.
In addition to finding the “hidden treasures” of the music, the focus of the work of the Berliner Philharmoniker and its chief conductor Sir Simon Rattle is still the constant renewed examination of the symphonic tradition – from Haydn to Mahler, from Brahms to Lutosławski. In a sense, what lies at the heart of this examination are the nine symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven which have been closely linked to the orchestra’s history from its very beginnings. After a first complete performance with Sir Simon in 2008 when the nine works were juxtaposed by the compositions of Anton Webern, “pure Beethoven” followed in the 2015/16 season, with the complete cycle being given in Berlin, Vienna, Paris, New York and Tokyo.
Beethoven perfected the genre of the symphony which was still new in his time and, with the choral finale of the Ninth to Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” – brought it to its first conclusion. The expression ranges from unfathomable despair to irrepressible wit to the evocation of human love and brotherhood. Programmatic aspects such as in the Eroica and the Pastorale meet the visionary mastery of the compositional principles of absolute music.
Daniel Finkernagel and Magdalena Zięba-Schwind’s film gives a fascinating insight into the work of the Berliner Philharmoniker. Rattle illustrates some passages on the piano, members of the orchestra talk about their experiences of previous performances and show how their individual voice is integrated into the overall sound. “Beethoven fever” can be felt in all of them.
A film by Daniel Finkernagel and Magdalena Zięba-Schwind (2015)
Sir Simon Rattle
Berliner Philharmoniker
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© 2015 Berlin Phil Media GmbH
