Live concerts

Photo: Dario Acosta

Yefim Bronfman opens this evening with Brahms’s First Piano Concerto. “When I think of Brahms, I think of natural landscapes, mountains, green valleys and beautiful panoramas, of this incredible grandeur,” says the pianist, who has been one of the world's top musicians for many years. Jean Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony also offers similar associations. The work with its grandiose final hymn will be conducted by the Finn Mikko Franck, who feels a special bond with the landscape of his homeland.

Photo: Heribert Schindler

As in 2020, the Berliner Philharmoniker and Kirill Petrenko will again give their 2021 European Concert in the Philharmonie Berlin, due to the corona pandemic – this time in the foyer of the building. Its special architecture is an invitation to present the music spatially: Blacher’s festive Fanfare, Ives’ enigmatic Unanswered Question, Mozart’s serene Notturno and Penderecki’s spherical Emanations consciously rely on the effect of spatial sound. Also in the European Concert programme: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s charming Orchestral Suite No. 3 and John Adams’ witty piece Short Ride in a Fast Machine.

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.

Photo: Oliver Helbig

A programme which allows the Berliner Philharmoniker to show off their skills as soloists: Ginastera’s Variaciones Concertantes and Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra offer our musicians wonderful opportunities to showcase the tonal splendour of their instruments. Principal horn Stefan Dohr and tenor Allan Clayton lead us through different nocturnal moods in Britten's Serenade, ranging from the tender and mysterious to the menacing.

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.

“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.

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.

Photo: Simon Pauly

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.