Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Vasily Petrenko

Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Vladimir Jurowski

Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Joana Mallwitz

Sofia Gubaidulina's ‘Fairytale Poem’ from 1971, with which the Konzerthausorchester and Joana Mallwitz begin their concert, is, according to the composer, about a little piece of chalk with big dreams of marvellous things that it wants to draw. Unfortunately, it is only used as blackboard chalk at school and is eventually thrown away. A boy finds it and begins to draw castles, gardens and sunsets on the street. The chalk is too happy to realize that it is finally disintegrating. Shostakovich's first cello concerto from 1959 shows how the composer was finally able to utilise a wealth of long frowned upon modernist techniques after the death of Stalin. The cellist of the century and dedicatee Mstislav ‘Slava’ Rostropovich became the great midwife. With us, artist in residence Sheku Kanneh-Mason takes on the solo part.Tchaikovsky dedicated the Fourth Symphony, premiered in 1878, to his confidante and patron Nadezhda von Meck. They never met, but exchanged 1200 letters. He wrote to her about the last movement of the Fourth: ‘If you don't have enough reason to find happiness in yourself, mingle with people, see what a good time they are having, how they abandon themselves completely to joyful feelings!’ One can only add to that: Welcome to the Konzerthaus, mingle with our audience!

Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Joana Mallwitz

Sofia Gubaidulina's ‘Fairytale Poem’ from 1971, with which the Konzerthausorchester and Joana Mallwitz begin their concert, is, according to the composer, about a little piece of chalk with big dreams of marvellous things that it wants to draw. Unfortunately, it is only used as blackboard chalk at school and is eventually thrown away. A boy finds it and begins to draw castles, gardens and sunsets on the street. The chalk is too happy to realize that it is finally disintegrating. Shostakovich's first cello concerto from 1959 shows how the composer was finally able to utilise a wealth of long frowned upon modernist techniques after the death of Stalin. The cellist of the century and dedicatee Mstislav ‘Slava’ Rostropovich became the great midwife. With us, artist in residence Sheku Kanneh-Mason takes on the solo part.Tchaikovsky dedicated the Fourth Symphony, premiered in 1878, to his confidante and patron Nadezhda von Meck. They never met, but exchanged 1200 letters. He wrote to her about the last movement of the Fourth: ‘If you don't have enough reason to find happiness in yourself, mingle with people, see what a good time they are having, how they abandon themselves completely to joyful feelings!’ One can only add to that: Welcome to the Konzerthaus, mingle with our audience!

Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Joana Mallwitz

Sofia Gubaidulina's ‘Fairytale Poem’ from 1971, with which the Konzerthausorchester and Joana Mallwitz begin their concert, is, according to the composer, about a little piece of chalk with big dreams of marvellous things that it wants to draw. Unfortunately, it is only used as blackboard chalk at school and is eventually thrown away. A boy finds it and begins to draw castles, gardens and sunsets on the street. The chalk is too happy to realize that it is finally disintegrating. Shostakovich's first cello concerto from 1959 shows how the composer was finally able to utilise a wealth of long frowned upon modernist techniques after the death of Stalin. The cellist of the century and dedicatee Mstislav ‘Slava’ Rostropovich became the great midwife. With us, artist in residence Sheku Kanneh-Mason takes on the solo part.Tchaikovsky dedicated the Fourth Symphony, premiered in 1878, to his confidante and patron Nadezhda von Meck. They never met, but exchanged 1200 letters. He wrote to her about the last movement of the Fourth: ‘If you don't have enough reason to find happiness in yourself, mingle with people, see what a good time they are having, how they abandon themselves completely to joyful feelings!’ One can only add to that: Welcome to the Konzerthaus, mingle with our audience!

Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Joana Mallwitz

Off to Italy! If not in person, you can at least escape the grey of Berlin for a while with the Konzerthausorchester, Joana Mallwitz and our former artist in residence violist Antoine Tamestit. First, Swedish composer Andrea Tarrodi will take you through picturesque Ligurian villages. The 21-year-old Felix Mendelssohn also fell in love with the southern landscape: ‘There is music in it, it sounds and resounds from all sides.’ He wrote to his sister Fanny: ‘In general, composing is now fresh again. The ‘Italian Symphony’ is making great progress; it will be the funniest piece I have written.’ However, the first version was only completed with great effort in the Berlin winter of 1832 - you would never know that from listening! Hector Berlioz travelled through the Abruzzo mountains. Impressions from this tour and inspiration from Byron's poem ‘Childe Harold's Pilgrimage’ resulted in a stylistically unique symphony in which the solo viola seems to embody the thematically rather static traveller, while the orchestra seems to embody the romantic, roaring world, including a serenade to the lover and a description of a robbers' camp.

Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Joana Mallwitz

Off to Italy! If not in person, you can at least escape the grey of Berlin for a while with the Konzerthausorchester, Joana Mallwitz and our former artist in residence violist Antoine Tamestit. First, Swedish composer Andrea Tarrodi will take you through picturesque Ligurian villages. The 21-year-old Felix Mendelssohn also fell in love with the southern landscape: ‘There is music in it, it sounds and resounds from all sides.’ He wrote to his sister Fanny: ‘In general, composing is now fresh again. The ‘Italian Symphony’ is making great progress; it will be the funniest piece I have written.’ However, the first version was only completed with great effort in the Berlin winter of 1832 - you would never know that from listening! Hector Berlioz travelled through the Abruzzo mountains. Impressions from this tour and inspiration from Byron's poem ‘Childe Harold's Pilgrimage’ resulted in a stylistically unique symphony in which the solo viola seems to embody the thematically rather static traveller, while the orchestra seems to embody the romantic, roaring world, including a serenade to the lover and a description of a robbers' camp.

Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Jan Willem de Vriend

Good news for all fans of Sebastian Knauer - the pianist is back at the Konzerthaus with Mozart's Concerto in D minor, premiered in 1785. Compared to earlier works in this genre, the orchestra is increasingly taking on the role of piano partner, which is of course good news for the Konzerthausorchester.Under the Dutch conductor Jan Willem de Vriend, however, our musicians will first play the inter-act music to a drama about the Egyptian King Thamos, which is set in the sun city of Heliopolis and was first performed in 1774. There is little to say about the plot - apart from the fact that the right people get each other and the schemers die by their own daggers or by being struck by lightning. Finally, Haydn's No. 99 from 1793, one of the „London“ symphonies, is played. In it, he used clarinets for the first time and (whether because of this or anyway is not known) had considerable success with the public.