Everyone’s allowed to love / A retro Valentine’s evening

A homage to love

A homage to love

A homage to love

Dear to the heart

Supporting the »wir helfen« (we help) campaign by the newspaper Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger is more than just a tradition upheld by the Gürzenich Orchestra – it is of heartfelt importance. This season, contributing to the initiative for underprivileged children and adolescents in the region, the orchestra will play a passionate concert full of deep emotions. Before giving birth to his second concerto for piano and orchestra, with its endless melodies and sweeping, intense drama, Sergei Rachmaninoff had to fight his way through a deep valley of depression and self-doubt. In the end, hypno-therapy is what helped the Russian composer dissolve his writer’s block. Against all expectations, the concerto was a great success: It offers everything ranging from chamber musical intimacy to symphonic opulence, and demands everything from the soloist, emotionally and technically. No problem for the 24-year-old Russian pianist Alexander Malofeev, a sensational shooting star who has won countless prizes and travels the world. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky described his last symphony, the »Pathétique,« as his best work, as being dear to his heart. He claimed to have put »all his soul« into it. The fact that he died just a few days after the premiere amplifies the impression of someone who condenses all facets of his artistic identity and symphonic oeuvre, and puts them to paper. Yet the musical approach he chooses is absolutely surprising. One would think he might bring his last symphony to a rejoicing and triumphant end, an emphatic summary of his own highly successful career. Instead, Tchaikovsky chooses a melancholy, introspective ending – not so much a real finale as a touching farewell with many open questions, a musical »good bye« which, still today, goes straight to the heart.

A Tribute to Bellini

Above all, their long, wistful melodies made Vincenzo Bellini's operas the epitome of musical romanticism in Italy and arias such as Norma's "Casta Diva" still characterise our concept of sung emotion today. Elda Laro, répétiteur, pianist and conductor at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, is a self-confessed Bellini fan and introduces us to the world of the Sicilian composer in the concert programme "A tribute to Bellini", which she conceived and presents together with members of the orchestra and ensemble of the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Concert broadcast to the Zeiss-Grossplanetarium

Enjoy symphony concerts with a view of the starry sky in the Zeiss Grand Planetarium – heavenly sounds in the truest sense of the word.

Concert broadcast to the Zeiss-Grossplanetarium

Enjoy symphony concerts with a view of the starry sky in the Zeiss Grand Planetarium – heavenly sounds in the truest sense of the word.

Concert broadcast to the Zeiss-Grossplanetarium

Enjoy symphony concerts with a view of the starry sky in the Zeiss Grand Planetarium – heavenly sounds in the truest sense of the word.

A work by Spohr

A Ravel evening with Seong-Jin Cho

Seong-Jin Cho loves the “incredible wealth of colours” and “often orchestral sound” of Maurice Ravel's piano music, where he finds a special form of sensitivity. He sees in Ravel “a person who smiles gently, but with tears in his eyes”. To mark the 150th anniversary of the French composer's birth, our Artist in Residence will perform Ravel's complete works for solo piano, including the gravitational Pavane pour une infante défunte, the mysterious Gaspard de la nuit and the sometimes lively, sometimes dreamy Valses nobles et sentimentales.