ConcertPulse
Guest performance
Philharmonie Berlin, Main Auditorium (Berlin)
Filters
It was Johannes Brahms who first honoured the youngest member of the woodwind section as „Fräulein Klarinette“, for whom he wrote wonderful chamber music late in life. However, Franz Schubert and Louis Spohr had already tapped into the clarinet's feminine side before that, writing intimate duets for it and the soprano, to which only the piano, which was obligatory in the bourgeois salon, was allowed to join in with the harmony. Our principal clarinettist Ralf Forster invites you into the Kleine Saal to indulge in the intimate house music atmosphere of a Schubertiade just before Christmas that reaches far beyond the composer's time.
Simon Rattle fell in love with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks at a young age – and now he makes his debut as its Chief Conductor and successor to Mariss Jansons at Musikfest Berlin. With a programme that treats Bach like jazz with Paul Hindemith, performs the Black poets of the “Harlem Renaissance” along with Alexander von Zemlinsky and ends in a virtuoso march towards tragedy with Gustav Mahler.
How do we maintain our composure and sense of humour in the face of imminent catastrophes? The question is aimed at a survival strategy not only for mankind, but for nature as a whole. It is always topical, and it seems to be especially so today. It was no less topical in 1939. One of the man-made disasters, the Second World War, was imminent. Four compositional heavyweights from the first half of the 20th century make their mark in today’s concert, two of them directly from 1939. Two others “play” with listeners’ expectations in the 1920s – and again in the 2020s. The “roaring twenties” were the birth of radio in Germany and thus also of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. The orchestra celebrated its centenary in the 2023/2024 season. Today’s chamber concert with works by Zemlinsky, Milhaud, Weill and Hindemith, among others, summarises four composers who are directly connected to the history of the orchestra – at the time as interpreters of their own works. In addition, the concert once again provides food for thought for the future of radio and concert music in the anniversary season: analogue music, literally created by living breath, meets digitally synthesised music created with the help of computer technology and electricity, brought in by RSB cooperation partner Catalyst – Institute for Creative Arts and Technology. Are the two worlds able to interact with each other? What role do creative people play in this? You are welcome to find out!