ConcertPulse
Guest performance
Philharmonie Berlin, Chamber Music Hall (Berlin)
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Alexander Lonquich is famous not only for his nuanced sound, but also for his original programming. For this programme, he has chosen a wide range of colourful discoveries that convey maximum expressivity in short movements. Alongside Bruckner’s delicate Erinnerung, there are two ebullient piano sonatas by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, and these are offset by alternatingly powerful and melancholic works by composer in residence Wolfgang Rihm, who died in July. Little-known Novellettes by Robert Schumann, a master of the expressive piano miniature, also punctuate the evening.
Eduard Mörike's first poetry collection, published in 1838, drew the attention of composers like Schumann, Brahms, and Franz. Though they set few of his poems to music, their choices, including "Er ist's" and "An eine Äolsharfe," reflect their esteem for his lyrical quality. Even Wolfgang Rihm used Mörike's poetry in his 2009 "Zwei kleine Lieder."
The master class of chamber music.
One of the greatest poets of all time, William Shakespeare is at the center of the season’s first Lied und Lyrik program. Roderick Williams and Julius Drake trace the Bard’s musical heritage in English, German, and French settings from three centuries, with Toby Jones returning to read Shakespeare’s original texts.
Following an acclaimed performance of Baroque repertoire last season, Isabelle Faust returns with a program that reveals a completely different side of her musical personality. Together with pianist Alexander Melnikov, a close collaborator since the beginning of her international career, she explores three large-scale Romantic sonatas by Johannes Brahms and Robert Schumann in a fascinating juxtaposition with exquisite miniatures by Webern and Kurtág.
Celebrity pianist Lang Lang opens our piano series with an evening of high romanticism. Frédéric Chopin’s mazurkas are a fascinating combion of folk-dance vigour with virtuosity and a sensitive awareness of sound, and Schumann’s Kreisleriana cycle bubbles over with imagination and emotion. Schumann’s cycle portrayed the composer in eight pieces, which together give – he wrote – a “picture of my character, my endeavours”. To open the concert, Lang Lang plays Gabriel Fauré’s Pavane, which combines romantic sensitivity with archaic baroque references.
Joined by the Hagen Quartett, Jörg Widmann continues his concert series exploring the history of the clarinet quintet from its beginnings to the present day. Their performance is dedicated to one of the last works written by Johannes Brahms. In the concert’s first half, the legendary Austrian ensemble presents the A-major String Quartet by Robert Schumann, one of the young Brahms’s early supporters.
For more than six decades, the chamber concerts by musicians from the Staatskapelle have been a constant feature of the Staatsoper programme. This season, ensembles have come together to select music from different periods, styles and cultures under the theme of ‘playing together’. On eleven dates in the Apollosaal, which with its special atmosphere is an ideal venue for chamber music and communicative interaction between players and listeners, works from the Baroque to the present day will be performed in constellations that are both exciting and harmonious, in which tangible contrasts play just as important a role as a common resonance and the balancing of opposites.
The Kyiv Symphony Orchestra’s programme shows us two opposing sides of Robert Schumann. The composer’s Third Symphony, his ”Rhenish“, is vital, rapturous and enthusiastic, and is considered the epitome of the Romantic symphony. His violin concerto, with its dark and melancholic profundity, is completely different. The solo part will be performed by Dmytro Udovychenko, winner of the 2024 Queen Elisabeth Competition. The Kyiv Symphony Orchestra, for which the Berliner Philharmoniker took on patronage in 2023, will open the concert with Svyatoslav Lunyov’s sensual and flowing string piece Tristium.
Experience a captivating evening of classical music featuring the award-winning cellist Irena Josifoska, winner of the 1st prize at the Gabrielli Cello Competition and the Prix Jean Firmenich. Accompanied by Michael Cohen-Weissert on the piano, this concert promises an exceptional program of iconic classical pieces.
Seit mehr als sechs Jahrzehnten gehören die Kammerkonzerte von Musiker:innen der Staatskapelle zu den Konstanten des Staatsopernprogramms. In dieser Spielzeit haben sich Ensembles zusammengefunden, die unter dem Thema „Zusammen-Spiel“ Musik verschiedener Zeiten, Stile und Kulturen ausgewählt haben. An elf Terminen im Apollosaal, der mit seiner besonderen Atmosphäre ein idealer Ort für Kammermusik und ein kommunikatives Miteinander von Spielenden und Hörenden ist, werden Werke vom Barock bis zur Gegenwart erklingen, in zugleich spannungsvollen wie harmonischen Konstellationen, bei denen spürbare Kontraste ebenso eine Rolle spielen wie ein gemeinsames Schwingen und der Ausgleich von Gegensätzen.
Enjoy an exquisite evening of chamber music featuring acclaimed violinist Maria Ioudenitch, winner of prestigious international competitions, and pianist Julia Hamos.
You can simply go to a concert at the Philharmonie, spontaneously, during your lunch break – and with free admission: every Wednesday at 13:00 between September and June. The programme lasts 40 to 50 minutes: chamber music, piano works or a percussion duo – everything from Tchaikovsky to tango. Members of the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Karajan Academy regularly perform, as well as guests from the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, the Staatskapelle Berlin and the Berlin music conservatories. As can be expected at a lunch concert, catering is available from 12 noon until shortly before the concert begins.
