Grosses Concert zum Jahreswechsel

Grosses Concert zum Jahreswechsel

Was 2024 like Allegro ma non troppo? D major or D minor? With timpani and trumpets or homogeneous strings? How will 2025 be? Sempre stringendo or più piano? Will we leave the old tones behind and intone new, more joyful ones? No matter what 2024 was like, it ends well with the Ninth. And no matter what 2025 will be like, it begins better with the Ninth.

Grosses Concert zum Jahreswechsel

Was 2024 like Allegro ma non troppo? D major or D minor? With timpani and trumpets or homogeneous strings? How will 2025 be? Sempre stringendo or più piano? Will we leave the old tones behind and intone new, more joyful ones? No matter what 2024 was like, it ends well with the Ninth. And no matter what 2025 will be like, it begins better with the Ninth.

Konzert zum Jahreswechsel

Start your New Year's Eve fireworks in a musical way with us in the Great Hall - with the Konzerthausorchester, our chief conductor Joana Mallwitz, cello soloist Nicolas Altstaedt and festive and cheerful orchestral pieces from Johann Strauss' rousing Fledermaus Overture to Antonín Dvořák's turbulent “Carnival” and Ottorino Respighi's tone poem “Roman Festivals”.

"Dinner for All": Segen zum Jahreswechsel im Ersten

In Berlin's "Dinner for All" interfaith New Year's Eve celebration, people from diverse religious and cultural backgrounds share their reflections, wishes, and hopes for the new year. They share traditional food, music, and prayers for peace. The pre-recorded event will be broadcast on ARD on December 31, 2024. The celebration acknowledges Berlin's multiculturalism and diverse calendars, including Jewish, Islamic, and Chinese New Year traditions.

Konzert zum Karfreitag

Haydn's composition is characterised by a dramatic, extremely moving emotionality that is hard to resist. It was initially conceived as a purely instrumental composition - meditation music in seven slow movements with a prelude and final movement („Il Terremoto“ - the earthquake) for a Passion service. However, when Haydn heard an arrangement of his work with a German text in Passau in 1794, he was inspired to write his own vocal version. The premiere took place in Vienna in 1796. With the flourishing of choral societies in the 19th century, this vocal version of the Seven Words became one of the most frequently performed pieces of Passion music ever.

Symphonic Concert

Maxime Pascal, photo: Nieto ‘Awakening of cheerful feelings on arrival in the countryside’ – that is the title of the first movement (Allegro non troppo) of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony. As we learn from letters he sent to the publisher Breitkopf & Härtel in 1808, the composer had serious doubts about whether the individual movements of the work should be given names containing such unambiguous pictorial suggestions. In the end, he not only retained them, but found it necessary to include next to the work’s title Pastoral Symphony, or Recollection of Life in the Countryside a caveat in brackets: An expression of feelings rather than painting. The composer’s joy and affirmative attitude to nature – the rustling of leaves, the murmur of streams, the singing of birds, the thunder, lightning and rain all translated into sound in this programmatic work – still leave no one indifferent today, delighting listeners with the deep connection to nature. André Gide’s poetic play Perséphone, written in the spirit of French Parnassianism, is based on a theme taken from Homer’s Hymn to Demeter. The Nobel Prize-winning text caught the attention of the famous dancer Ida Rubinstein, who asked Igor Stravinsky to write music to it. Out of the planned ‘symphonic ballet’ arose a genre combining dance, mime, singing and recitation in an orchestral setting. It was premiered without much fanfare on the stage of the Paris Opera on 30 April 1934. Many years later, Stravinsky's melodrama attracted the interest of many choreographers, including Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, Janine Charrat, Martha Graham, and in 2012 Peter Sellars directed this production at the Teatro Real in Madrid. Today, this work is not infrequently performed in a concert version, which the Warsaw Philharmonic ensembles, with renowned artists and the Artos children’s choir, will present on our stage for the first time. Judith Chemla will perform the part of Persephone in Stravinsky's piece, replacing Marina Hands.

Symphonic Concert

Maxime Pascal, photo: Nieto ‘Awakening of cheerful feelings on arrival in the countryside’ – that is the title of the first movement (Allegro non troppo) of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony. As we learn from letters he sent to the publisher Breitkopf & Härtel in 1808, the composer had serious doubts about whether the individual movements of the work should be given names containing such unambiguous pictorial suggestions. In the end, he not only retained them, but found it necessary to include next to the work’s title Pastoral Symphony, or Recollection of Life in the Countryside a caveat in brackets: An expression of feelings rather than painting. The composer’s joy and affirmative attitude to nature – the rustling of leaves, the murmur of streams, the singing of birds, the thunder, lightning and rain all translated into sound in this programmatic work – still leave no one indifferent today, delighting listeners with the deep connection to nature. André Gide’s poetic play Perséphone, written in the spirit of French Parnassianism, is based on a theme taken from Homer’s Hymn to Demeter. The Nobel Prize-winning text caught the attention of the famous dancer Ida Rubinstein, who asked Igor Stravinsky to write music to it. Out of the planned ‘symphonic ballet’ arose a genre combining dance, mime, singing and recitation in an orchestral setting. It was premiered without much fanfare on the stage of the Paris Opera on 30 April 1934. Many years later, Stravinsky's melodrama attracted the interest of many choreographers, including Frederick Ashton, George Balanchine, Janine Charrat, Martha Graham, and in 2012 Peter Sellars directed this production at the Teatro Real in Madrid. Today, this work is not infrequently performed in a concert version, which the Warsaw Philharmonic ensembles, with renowned artists and the Artos children’s choir, will present on our stage for the first time. Judith Chemla will perform the part of Persephone in Stravinsky's piece, replacing Marina Hands.

Symphonic Concert

Paul Goodwin, photo: Carmel Bach Festival There are various surprising types of silence and just as many intriguing attempts to ‘soundtrack’ it. One of the earliest examples of the concert overture – a work in its own right, not preceding a larger form – Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy's Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage was inspired by the poetry of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and begins (contrary to appearances) with the negative experience of powerlessness and stillness. After all, for sailors, silence at sea means a lack of wind and a break in the voyage. Fortunately, in this colourful symphonic tale, the ending of which is betrayed by the work’s title, everything ends with a safe return to port. Three decades ago, the opposite of silence – the experience of a storm – provided the impulse for Eric Whitacre to compose Cloudburst, a composition for choir, piano and percussion that is a celebration in sound of the energy released in nature. To mark the 400th anniversary of the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy composed a monumental cantata for three soloists, choir, organ and orchestra, posthumously referred to as his Symphony No. 2 ‘Lobgesang’ (‘Song of Praise’). An expansive three-movement sinfonia is followed by a series of vocal and instrumental segments to texts taken from the Bible, perhaps Gutenberg’s most famous publication.

Symphonic Concert

Paul Goodwin, photo: Carmel Bach Festival There are various surprising types of silence and just as many intriguing attempts to ‘soundtrack’ it. One of the earliest examples of the concert overture – a work in its own right, not preceding a larger form – Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy's Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage was inspired by the poetry of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and begins (contrary to appearances) with the negative experience of powerlessness and stillness. After all, for sailors, silence at sea means a lack of wind and a break in the voyage. Fortunately, in this colourful symphonic tale, the ending of which is betrayed by the work’s title, everything ends with a safe return to port. Three decades ago, the opposite of silence – the experience of a storm – provided the impulse for Eric Whitacre to compose Cloudburst, a composition for choir, piano and percussion that is a celebration in sound of the energy released in nature. To mark the 400th anniversary of the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy composed a monumental cantata for three soloists, choir, organ and orchestra, posthumously referred to as his Symphony No. 2 ‘Lobgesang’ (‘Song of Praise’). An expansive three-movement sinfonia is followed by a series of vocal and instrumental segments to texts taken from the Bible, perhaps Gutenberg’s most famous publication.

10th Subscription Concert