Live concerts
Kirill Petrenko conducts Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov
Photo: Stephan Rabold
In this concert, Kirill Petrenko presents three impassioned 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 symphonic poem Francesca da Rimini. Unfortunately, Sergei Rachmaninov’s opera on the same subject, which was originally planned for this concert, cannot be performed due to the corona pandemic; in its place, we will hear the composer’s mysterious and sombre Isle of the Dead.
Berliner 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. 32Interview
approx. 15 min before the concert: Kirill Petrenko in conversation with Dominik Wollenweber
Repeat: Kirill Petrenko conducts Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov
Photo: Stephan Rabold
In this concert, Kirill Petrenko presents three impassioned 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 symphonic poem Francesca da Rimini. Unfortunately, Sergei Rachmaninov’s opera on the same subject, which was originally planned for this concert, cannot be performed due to the corona pandemic; in its place, we will hear the composer’s mysterious and sombre Isle of the Dead.
Repeat
Berliner 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. 32Interview
approx. 15 min before the concert: Kirill Petrenko in conversation with Dominik Wollenweber
Daniele Gatti conducts Stravinsky and Shostakovich
Photo: Pablo Faccinetto
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.”
Berliner Philharmoniker
Daniele GattiIgor Stravinsky
Apollon musagète (revised version from 1947)Dmitri Shostakovich
Symphony No. 5 in D minor, op. 47
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. Now he will perform 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.
Berliner Philharmoniker
Kirill PetrenkoDaniil Trifonov
Anna Thorvaldsdóttir
New work (première) – commissioned jointly by the Berliner Philharmoniker together 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. 40Daniil Trifonov piano
Josef Suk
Pohádka léta (A Summer’s Tale), Symphonic Poem, op. 29
Kirill Petrenko conducts Weill and Stravinsky
Photo: Monika Rittershaus
Philharmonic Biennale: 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 First Symphony. 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? Two fascinating facets of the “Roaring Twenties”.
Biennale of the Berliner Philharmoniker
Berliner Philharmoniker
Kirill PetrenkoMichael Spyres, Ekaterina Semenchuk
Kurt Weill
Symphony No. 1 “Berliner Symphonie”Igor Stravinsky
Oedipus rexMichael Spyres tenor (Oedipus), Ekaterina Semenchuk mezzo-soprano (Jocasta), Shenyang bass-baritone (Creon), Andrea Mastroni bass (Tiresias), Krystian Adam tenor (Shepherd), Derek Welton bass (Messenger), Bibiana Beglau speaker, Men of the Rundfunkchor Berlin
Donald Runnicles conducts Hindemith and Weill
Photo: Simon Pauly
“I only conduct pieces that I think I have something to say with,” says Donald Runnicles. As part of our online festival “Die Goldenen Zwanziger (“The Golden Twenties”), the general music director of Deutsche Oper Berlin presents three works from operas written in the 1920s whose music reflects the disparate attitudes to life of the time: Schreker’s Schatzgräber, Berg’s Wozzeck and Weill’s Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny. The concert opens with the prelude to d’Albert’s opera Tiefland, a tale of jealousy set among Spanish farmers in the Pyrenees, which premiered in 1903.
Berliner Philharmoniker
Donald RunniclesEugen d’Albert
Tiefland (The Lowlands): Symphonic Prelude, op. 34Franz Schreker
Der Schatzgräber (The Treasure Hunter): Symphonic InterludeAlban Berg
Three Fragments from Wozzeck (reduced version)Irene Roberts soprano
Kurt Weill
The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny: Suite (arr. Wilhelm Brückner-Rüggeberg)
Christian Thielemann conducts Strauss and Busoni
Photo: Stephan Rabold
Biennale of the Berliner Philharmoniker
Berliner Philharmoniker
Christian ThielemannPaul 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
Das Rosenband, op. 36 No. 1 (version for voice and orchestra)Diana Damrau soprano
Richard Strauss
Ständchen, op. 17 No. 2 (version for voice and orchestra)Diana Damrau soprano
Richard Strauss
Freundliche Vision, op. 48 No. 1 (version for voice and orchestra)Diana Damrau soprano
Richard Strauss
Wiegenlied, op. 41 No. 1 (version for voice and orchestra)Diana Damrau soprano
Richard Strauss
Allerseelen, op. 10 No. 8 (version for voice and orchestra)Diana Damrau soprano
Richard Strauss
Zueignung, op. 10 No. 1 (version for voice and orchestra)Diana Damrau soprano
Richard Strauss
Morgen, op. 27 No. 4 (Version for Singing Voice and Orchestra)John Henry Mackay
Richard Strauss
Die Tageszeiten, song cycle for male choir and orchestra, op. 76Rundfunkchor Berlin
“Late Night” concert: A night at the Moka Efti
The Philharmonie is transformed into the legendary coffee house Moka Efti for one night, when members of the Berliner Philharmoniker play dance music of the 1920s – foxtrots and shimmies, tangos, marches and blues ballads. Ernst Krenek’s Lustige Märsche (Merry Marches) provide the finale – wind music that literally seems to trip over its own feet: highly charged, breathless and wonderfully unconventional.
Biennale of the Berliner Philharmoniker: “Late Night”
Members of the Berliner Philharmoniker
Kurt Weill
Berlin Lit UpKurt Weill
Little Threepenny MusicKurt Weill
Panamanian SuiteStefan Wolpe
Suite from the TwentiesMátyás Seiber
Two JazzolettesErnst Krenek
Three Merry Marches, op. 44
Paavo Järvi and Igor Levit perform Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5
A work that “really makes you happy”: that is how Igor Levit described Beethoven’s brilliant E flat major Piano Concerto, in which – amid the tension between individual and collective – the orchestra and solo part combine to form an integral whole. In contrast, sections of Prokofiev’s E flat minor Symphony are supposed to sound like “wind sweeping over a churchyard”. The slow middle movement alternates between aggressiveness and lament, while rhythmic interjections in the finale symbolize – in the words of the composer – “the forces of evil”. E flat major versus E flat minor: both works are in good hands with Paavo Järvi.
Berliner 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
Semyon Bychkov and Lisa Batiashvili perform Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto
Berliner 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
Kirill Petrenko conducts Tchaikovsky’s “Mazeppa”
Photo: Chris Christodoulou
Like the opera Eugene Onegin, which he composed five years earlier, Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Mazeppa is also based on a poem by Alexander Pushkin. The work tells the story of the tragic life and loves of a Ukrainian Cossack commander against the background of events during the reign of Peter the Great. After the opera is heard at the Easter Festival in Baden-Baden, the passionate, dramatic score will be brought to life by an outstanding ensemble of singers at the Philharmonie Berlin.
Berliner Philharmoniker
Kirill PetrenkoVladislav Sulimsky, Olga Peretyatko, Dmitry Ulyanov, Ekaterina Semenchuk
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Mazeppa (concert performance)Vladislav Sulimsky baritone (Mazeppa), Olga Peretyatko soprano, Dmitry Ulyanov bass (Vasily Kochubey), Ekaterina Semenchuk mezzo-soprano (Lyubov Kochubey), Dmytro Popov tenor (Andrei), Vasily Gorshkov tenor (Iskra), Dimitry Ivashchenko bass (Filipp Orlik),
Zubin Mehta conducts Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony
They belonged to different stylistic periods but nevertheless had a great deal in common: Olivier Messiaen and Anton Bruckner numbered among the leading organists of their day, and both were deeply rooted in the Catholic faith, which considerably influenced their works. Zubin Mehta combines Messiaen’s Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum, an impressive musical memorial to the dead of both world wars, with Anton Bruckner’s monumental Ninth Symphony. In this work, Bruckner not only sums up his symphonic oeuvre but also bids farewell to this world in a very personal way.
Berliner Philharmoniker
Zubin MehtaOlivier Messiaen
Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum for wind orchestra and percussionAnton Bruckner
Symphony No. 9 in D minor
Mikko Franck and Yefim Bronfman perform Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1
One would never get the idea that virtuosity could be an end in itself with Yefim Bronfman, who has been a world-class pianist for many years. His artistry is always devoted to the work itself – regardless of whether he launches into a hard-hitting thunderstorm of chords or caresses delicate poetic tableaus out of the keys. “With Brahms I think of natural landscapes, mountains, green valleys and beautiful panoramas, of incredible grandeur,” Bronfman says about the composer, whose First Piano Concerto he plays at these concerts.
Berliner Philharmoniker
Mikko FranckYefim Bronfman
Johannes Brahms
Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 1 in D minor, op. 15Yefim Bronfman piano
Jean Sibelius
Symphony No. 5 in E flat major, op. 82
Kirill Petrenko conducts Mozart and Tchaikovsky
Kirill Petrenko’s interpretation of music by Mozart will be heard together with Tchaikovsky’s Suite No. 3 during this concert, first in Berlin and afterwards at the European Concert. The annual anniversary concert of the Berliner Philharmoniker takes place at the Sagrada Família in Barcelona for the first time in 2021, with a selection of works tailor-made for the sacred location, including the “Coronation” Mass, the Ave verum and the motet “Exsultate, jubilate”. The Catalan choral society Orfeó Català, founded in 1891, makes its debut with the orchestra at these concerts.
Berliner Philharmoniker
Kirill PetrenkoRosa Feola
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
“Exsultate, jubilate”, motet, K. 165Rosa Feola soprano
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mass in C major, K. 317 “Coronation”Rosa Feola soprano, Wiebke Lehmkuhl contralto, Mauro Peter tenor, Krešimir Stražanac bass-baritone, Orfeó Català
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Suite No. 3 in G major, op. 55
European Concert from Barcelona with Kirill Petrenko
European Concert from Barcelona
Berliner Philharmoniker
Kirill PetrenkoKirill Petrenko, Rosa Feola, Wiebke Lehmkuhl, Mauro Peter, Krešimir Stražanac, Orfeó Català
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Symphony No. 25 in G minor, K. 183Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
“Exsultate, jubilate”, motet, K. 165Rosa Feola soprano, Wiebke Lehmkuhl contralto, Mauro Peter tenor, Krešimir Stražanac bass-baritone, Orfeó Català choir
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
“Ave verum corpus”, motet K. 618Orfeó Català choir
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Mass in C major, K. 317 “Coronation”Rosa Feola soprano, Wiebke Lehmkuhl contralto, Mauro Peter tenor, Krešimir Stražanac bass-baritone, Orfeó Català choir
Kirill Petrenko conducts the BE PHIL Orchestra
At 16,000 kilometres, Philipp Eversheim had the longest journey. The flutist from Australia was one of the approximately 90 music-loving amateurs who had qualified to participate in the BE PHIL Orchestra in 2018. This project of the Education Programme gave musicians from 30 countries the unique experience of performing Brahms’s First Symphony under Sir Simon Rattle. A highly emotional event for both the participants and the audience. This season there will be a revival of the BE PHIL Orchestra – with Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony and chief conductor Kirill Petrenko at the podium.
BE PHIL Orchestra
Kirill PetrenkoDmitri Shostakovich
Symphony No. 10 in E minor, op. 93
Kirill Petrenko conducts Mahler’s Ninth Symphony
“Each of Gustav Mahler’s symphonies has a different philosophy, builds a different world,” Kirill Petrenko says in an interview for the Digital Concert Hall. After the Fourth and the Sixth, he now conducts the Ninth, the composer’s last completed symphony, with the Berliner Philharmoniker. A work which makes a radical break with tradition, points the way to modernism and thus pushes open the door to a different world. Mahler conceived the cosmos of this work as fragile, fragmentary and episodic – a grand farewell to youth, love, life.
Berliner Philharmoniker
Kirill PetrenkoGustav Mahler
Symphony No. 9 in D major
Susanna Mälkki conducts “Bluebeard’s Castle”
It is “a masterpiece, a musical volcano that erupts for sixty minutes of tragic intensity and leaves us with only one desire: to hear it again.” That is how Zoltán Kodály described Béla Bartók’s only opera, Bluebeard’s Castle. Composed in 1911, the one-act work is a brilliantly orchestrated symbolic psychological drama that takes us deep into the emotional world of the fin de siècle. “What do you see?” Bluebeard asks his bride Judith, who wants to open the seven doors of the Duke’s past. Susanna Mälkki conducts this musical psychoanalysis, which makes listeners shudder.
Berliner Philharmoniker
Susanna MälkkiIldikó Komlósi, Johannes Martin Kränzle
Kaija Saariaho
Vista (German première) – commissioned jointly by Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation together with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association (concert performance)Béla Bartók
Bluebeard’s Castle, Sz 48 (concert performance)Ildikó Komlósi mezzo-soprano (Judith), Johannes Martin Kränzle baritone (Bluebeard)
Simon Rattle conducts Elgar’s “The Dream of Gerontius”
Sir Simon Rattle returns to the podium of the Berliner Philharmoniker with a major work by his countryman Edward Elgar. The Dream of Gerontius describes the journey of the soul of a dead man on its way to the next world. The work was composed in 1900, one year after Sigmund Freud published his epochal The Interpretation of Dreams. The dream as the gateway to the subconscious. In Elgar’s version, which is deeply indebted to the fin de siècle, the dream appears in the form of a comforting meditation on death.
Berliner Philharmoniker
Sir Simon RattleDame Sarah Connolly, Allan Clayton, Roderick Williams, Rundfunkchor Berlin
Edward Elgar
The Dream of Gerontius, op. 38Dame Sarah Connolly mezzo-soprano, Allan Clayton tenor, Roderick Williams baritone, Rundfunkchor Berlin
Alan Gilbert conducts Brahms, Chin and Webern
The early 20th century was not only influenced by avant-garde concepts but was also characterized by an unbridled passion for intoxicating sounds. Alan Gilbert, chief conductor of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, demonstrates that in this programme. We can almost feel the gentle breeze that Anton Webern evokes in his impressionist early work Im Sommerwind (In the Summer Wind). And Arnold Schoenberg clearly took great pleasure in intensifying the colours of Brahms’s Piano Quartet No. 1, drawing on all the orchestra’s resources. Unsuk Chin’s iridescent, sensuous Piano Concerto will be heard between the two works, with Sunwook Kim as soloist.
Berliner Philharmoniker
Alan GilbertSunwook Kim
Anton Webern
Im Sommerwind, Idyll for large orchestraUnsuk Chin
Concerto for Piano and OrchestraSunwook Kim piano
Johannes Brahms
Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, op. 25 (orchestrated by Arnold Schoenberg)
Herbert Blomstedt conducts Sibelius and Brahms
“Conducting is a good profession to grow old in, because it’s always a challenge, and you need challenges when you get older,” said Herbert Blomstedt, born in 1927, who is continuing his long-standing collaboration with the Berliner Philharmoniker with undiminished energy and vitality. On this programme Sibelius’s dark, mist-shrouded Fourth Symphony is contrasted with Brahms’s Third. Between them, a rarity will be heard: the solemn Intermezzo from the cantata Sången (The Song), composed in 1926 by the Swedish late Romantic composer Wilhelm Stenhammar.
Berliner Philharmoniker
Herbert BlomstedtJean Sibelius
Symphony No. 4 in A minor, op. 63Wilhelm Stenhammar
Interlude from the Symphonic Cantata Sången, op. 44Johannes Brahms
Symphony No. 3 in F major, op. 90
Jean-Christophe Spinosi and Philippe Jaroussky
Jean-Christophe Spinosi’s artistic home is music of the 17th and 18th centuries. He also appears as an opera conductor, with acclaimed interpretations of works by Mozart and Rossini. For his debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker Spinosi has put together a varied programme including two works from the Baroque period, a symphony from the Viennese Classical School and Romantic bel canto. Philippe Jaroussky is also at home in this repertoire and contributes arias by Vivaldi and Rossini in his brilliant countertenor.
Berliner Philharmoniker
Jean-Christophe SpinosiPhilippe Jaroussky
Antonio Vivaldi
Sinfonia from L'Olimpiade, RV 725Antonio Vivaldi
Aria “Mentre dormi amor fomenti” from L'Olimpiade, RV 725Philippe Jaroussky countertenor
Georg Philipp Telemann
Concerto in E minor for Flute, Recorder, Strings and Continuo, TWV 52:e1Antonio Vivaldi
Aria “Gemo in un punto e fremo” from L'Olimpiade, RV 725Philippe Jaroussky countertenor
Joseph Haydn
Symphony No. 82 in C major “L’Ours”Gioacchino Rossini
Overture to L’Italiana in AlgeriGioacchino Rossini
Cavatina “Di tanti palpiti” from TancrediPhilippe Jaroussky countertenor
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Symphony No. 41 in C major, K. 551 “Jupiter”
Concert from the Waldbühne with Martin Grubinger
At his debut with the orchestra in March of 2019 listeners could experience the presence, physicality and enthusiasm with which multi-percussionist Martin Grubinger executed the solo part in Peter Eötvös’s percussion concerto Speaking Drums. He virtuosically elicited a wealth of timbres from his arsenal of instruments – from eruptive cascades of sound to delicate bell tones. At the close of the concert season in the Waldbühne the percussion star returns to the Berliner Philharmoniker: pure rhythm under the stars.
From the Berlin Waldbühne
Berliner Philharmoniker
Wayne MarshallMartin Grubinger
Leonard Bernstein
On the Town: 3 Dance EpisodesJohn Williams
Percussive PlanetMartin Grubinger drums
George Gershwin
Rhapsody in Blue (orch. Ferde Grofé)Leonard Bernstein
On the Waterfront, Symphonic Suite