ConcertPulse
Guest performance
Philharmonie Berlin, Main Auditorium (Berlin)
Filters
Not only as a big symphonic ensemble, but also as the Konzerthaus Chamber Orchestra our Konzerthausorchester musicians come together several times each season – this time under the direction of of our First Concertmaster Suyoen Kim. They choose the pieces and instrumentation for their concerts themselves.
p>Chamber music is one of the great joys of life for our orchestral musicians. Here they meet up with Lera Auerbach, the composer, pianist and visual artist to whom a ‘Creative Portrait’ is dedicated this season. She will play Mozart's Piano Concerto in D minor, first performed in 1785, in a version with string quintet. As the orchestra plays the role of a partner to the solo instrument in this concerto far more than in earlier representatives of the genre, K. 466 is probably a particularly good choice for such an arrangement! Antonín Dvořák wrote three string quintets - but only included the double bass in the middle one from 1875, thus providing an additional foundation. Czech folk music, dreamy passages and ‘dance melodies carried by shimmering sonorities’ - anyone who loves the composer's string serenade will also like this quintet. The programme also includes compositions by Lera Auerbach, which are yet to be announced.
Musicians of the Komische Oper Berlin present intensive listening experiences in special locations as part of their chamber concerts. From the festive ambience of the Schiller Theater to the monumental vastness of the old hangar at Tempelhof Airport, with new sound worlds at the Kindl site to enchanting experiences in a tent.
„The 'Concert Românesc' reflects my deep love for Romanian folk music and Romanian-speaking culture as such. The piece was immediately banned and only performed many decades later,“ says Ligeti about his 1951 work, which was banned at the time due to some dissonances that were considered undesirable. The Russian pianist Alexander Melnikov then takes his place among the Konzerthausorchester. In the Piano Concerto in G major from 1784, Mozart leaves old formal principles behind, including the fact that the winds are already frequently entrusted with solo tasks. The concert, conducted by Anja Bihlmaier, ends with Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 8, which beautifully showcases the orchestral instruments in a lyrical and melodic manner - from the waltz-loving strings to the virtuoso flute dancing along in the last movement.
The Konzerthausorchester invites families to the Great Hall on Sundays at 11.00 - croissants and hot chocolate included! A musician always leads through the program. They reveal secrets from everyday life in the orchestra and invite you to join in. Meanwhile, younger siblings between the ages of 3 and 6 are very welcome at the “Musical childcare”.
„The 'Concert Românesc' reflects my deep love for Romanian folk music and Romanian-speaking culture as such. The piece was immediately banned and only performed many decades later,“ says Ligeti about his 1951 work, which was banned at the time due to some dissonances that were considered undesirable. The Russian pianist Alexander Melnikov then takes his place amog the Konzerthausorchester. In the Piano Concerto in G major from 1784, Mozart leaves old formal principles behind, including the fact that the winds are already frequently entrusted with solo tasks. The concert, conducted by Anja Bihlmaier, ends with Antonín Dvořák's Symphony No. 8, which beautifully showcases the orchestral instruments in a lyrical and melodic manner - from the waltz-loving strings to the virtuoso flute dancing along in the last movement.
Based in Prague, the multi-award-winning Bennewitz Quartet is regarded as a cultural ambassador for the Czech Republic, embodying the Bohemian-Czech sound idiom par excellence. The ensemble is named after the important violinist and founder of the Czech violin school Antonín Bennewitz. The programme includes Brahms' predominantly cheerful third string quartet, which he wrote in 1875 during a summer holiday on the Neckar near Heidelberg. For the string quintet by their compatriot Dvořák, the four Czechs have borrowed reinforcements from the Salzburg Hagen Quartet: Violist Veronika Hagen completes the line-up in the Bohemian master's third and final string quintet. Composed in 1893, it is one of the pieces that, like his 9th Symphony „From the New World“ and the 12th String Quartet with the nickname „American“, we owe to the composer's extended stay in the USA. Whether and to what extent some of the motifs and melodies originate from indigenous music that fascinated Dvořák has been a matter of some controversy among musicologists, though.
Josef Suk’s close bond with his composition teacher Antonín Dvořák was not merely artistic—he was also his older colleague’s son-in-law. The Heath Quartet juxtaposes Dvořák’s String Quartet Op. 51, known as the “Slavonic” due to its many allusions to Czech folk music, with Suk’s meditation on an ancient chorale for Wenceslas, the patron saint of Bohemia. Written on the eve of World War I, the composition is a plea for peace and protection as well as an expression of new found Czech patriotism. Works by Benjamin Britten and Joseph Haydn complete the program.
Our musicians come together several times each season not only in large symphonic formations, but also as the Konzerthaus Chamber Orchestra - this time led by our first concertmaster Sayako Kusaka, who is also the ensemble's artistic director. They choose the pieces for their concerts themselves. A string quartet with „sonata“ in its nickname? To avoid any confusion: Tolstoy's story „The Kreutzer Sonata“, which is about Beethoven's famous violin sonata, inspired Leoš Janáček to write his first string quartet in 1923. Apparently the literature had a very inspiring effect, as he completed it within an astonishing nine days. Both works, Janáček's quartet and Beethoven's sonata, can also be heard in this larger instrumentation after Dvořák's short lyrical „Nachtstück“ for string orchestra.
We admire stars because they are talented, beautiful, strong, awe-inspiring. We love them when they show their weaknesses. As Midori did. She was a child prodigy before whom Leonard Bernstein fell to his knees in awe. After a stunning career, she gave an account of her mother, who was consumed by ambition, in her 2004 German autobiography ›Einfach Midori’‹ as well as on her teachers and her addictions. She keeps returning after retiring from the stage, this time with Dvořák‘s only violin concerto. She will show that she’s still on fire.