The “Late Night” concerts with discoveries for night owls
They are nocturnal entertainments for fans of the bizarre, the baffling, anarchic and dreamy: the Late Night concerts of the Berliner Philharmoniker, in which members of the orchestra regularly serve dessert after a symphony concert, often assisted by prominent guests. Sometimes they sound jazzy, sometimes sentimental, and one frequently hears how humorous contemporary music can be.
Whether parodistic vocal scenes, solo pieces from Luciano Berio’s Sequenza series, “punchy” chamber orchestras as in Ionisation by Edgard Varèse, or big band sounds – the Late Night concerts are above all about one thing: the joy of the unconventional. Where else can you hear Manuel de Falla’s poetic Don Quixote chamber opera Master Peter’s Puppet Show or the evocative Quatre Poèmes hindous by Ravel’s student Maurice Delage?
Our selection includes the avant-garde chamber concerto by György Ligeti alongside artistic entertainment by Leonard Bernstein and Christian Jost. The members of the orchestra are often supported by renowned guests, such as the mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená, and Matthias Pintscher, one of the most successful composers and conductors of the younger generation. William Walton’s Façade also proved a hit with the audience: soprano Barbara Hannigan alternated between reciting and conducting with Simon Rattle – hilarious and, as the press wrote, “very British”. Hannigan shines no less in our playlist performing Kurt Weill. Patricia Kopatchinskaja has also proven to be an enormously versatile Late Night protagonist: the violinist, who is the Philharmoniker’s Artist in Residence in the 2021/22 season, enchanted audiences in 2019 in her Pierrot lunaire costume, with music by George Enescu and an Emperor’s Waltz in an unusual style.
© 2021 Berlin Phil Media GmbH
