For Isabelle Faust only the art matters, not the trappings. She plays with aplomb, focus, deep feeling—that’s how the violinist enthrals the audience, particularly with Shostakovich’s Second Violin Concerto, which, seriously ill in 1967, he »squeezed out note by note, with difficulty«. Sharply reduced, introverted music that concentrates completely on the violin. Music that inquires into where we are going and why.
After the concert: Casual Concert Lounge with Live Act and DJ
Gabriela Montero is a real phenomenon. You simply need to call out a melody to the Venezuelan, and she cuts loose. Her improvisational art is enthralling—hardly anyone in the world of classical music is able to improvise like this anymore. She transforms Beethoven’s Fifth into a tango, and a simple children’s song into a rapture full of Latino rhythms and jazz that lasts minutes. Familiar, and yet it feels so new. It makes you happy, and you want to hear more—with her ›Latin Concerto‹ from 2016, you’ll be richly rewarded.
Playing violin sounds like fingernails scratching on a chalkboard. That’s how Gil Shaham’s mother reacted to his wish to learn the instrument. But he won out, and later even won a Grammy. What he says about Korngold’s magnificent violin concerto: »It takes a listener on a journey of about half an hour, and at the end, you’re transformed. You feel like you’ve read a great novel or seen a great movie.«
Listen, join in, have fun, discover music – the radio3 Children’s Concerts of the DSO are the perfect introduction to the wonderful world of classical music. In six concerts per season, children of primary school age can get to know the orchestra’s enchanting sound machine in all its facets. Together with the DSO, moderator Christian Schruff takes the six to twelve-year-old concertgoers on entertaining and interactive voyages of discovery, tells exciting stories, and presents great music. Already before the concert, at the Open House in the foyer, the young music fans can get to know various instruments together with members of the orchestra, have their faces painted, do crafts, sing, and much more.
Composer Sven Helbig presents everything he encounters, notices, receives, and likes on his musical travels to the audience of his ›Schöne Töne‹ (Beautiful Sounds) weekly programme on the radioeins radio station. Here, electronica, ambient, new or ancient music meet classical orchestral music in an original and effortless way; here, you can experience an adventure trip through music from all over the world and from all times. For the second season, Helbig will perform his ›Schöne Töne‹ programme live twice, together with the DSO, at the Haus des Rundfunks broadcasting centre in Berlin. He moderates the evening himself in an entertaining and enjoyable way, welcomes exciting musical guests who can be experienced together with the orchestra, and shares anecdotes from his almost infinite treasure trove of musical stories.
»The work of a crazy man.« »A thing made by idiots.« Wild comments for Stravinsky after his ‘Rite of Spring’ premiered in Paris in 1913. People jeered and hissed in the stalls; nothing more could be heard of the music. Respectable listeners clobbered each other. The police reported that 27 people were injured at the »massacre« (Debussy) and Jean Cocteau, who was in attendance, noted that »a countess’s diadem was askew«. What was once a shocker transformed into a classic of modernism. What better recommendation could there be?
Under the motto »Orchestra for Democracy«, the DSO invites the audience to two concerts that combine music and speech to make a powerful plea for human rights and the value of our democracy. Central works of classical modernism and late romanticism meet contemporary reflections and create a format that places the demands and reality of our society at the centre.
Under the motto »Orchestra for Democracy«, the DSO invites the audience to two concerts that combine music and speech to make a powerful plea for human rights and the value of our democracy. Central works of classical modernism and late romanticism meet contemporary reflections and create a format that places the demands and reality of our society at the centre.
»Ecstatic screams from the audience, standing ovations« was how the Tagesspiegel described Mao Fujita’s DSO debut in April 2023. Fujita’s god is Mozart. One music track from his ›Mozart Reworked‹ CD made it all the way to the top on Apple Music’s ›Piano Chill Playlist‹; his recording of all the piano sonatas has been enthusiastically received by the critics. A real discovery.
Experimenting is the name of the game here. ›Ultraschall Berlin‹, the festival for new music, regularly presents new sounds at the beginning of the year in the Haus des Rundfunks broadcasting centre. Whether world premieres and first performances in Germany, works of the recent past, or classics of the avant-garde – ›Ultraschall Berlin‹ combines a look at the new, the wild, the unconventional with forays through the music history of the past 70 years. Organised by the radio3 and Deutschlandfunk Kultur radio stations, the festival continues the ›Musik der Gegenwart‹ series, with which the DSO has been bringing the most recent compositions to the Berlin stage in legendary concerts since the 1950s. In 2025, the orchestra will again be performing the opening and closing concerts of the festival.
She’s got it, that certain something stars are made of: Anna Prohaska. Recalcitrant look, cheeky wisecracks, an avowed metal fan, yet at the same time thoughtful, deep. »I love being on stage,« she says, and she evidently finds the right tone for each and every musical style, even in operas with »rather convoluted language«. With her luminous soprano, she will rejoice in Mozart’s motet ›Exsultate, jubilate‹, taking it to soaring heights. Hallelujah!
Celebrating New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day with the DSO and Circus Roncalli has been considered the absolute highlight at the turn of the year since 2003. The shows are sold out in no time at all. Bernhard Paul, Paul Daniel and the orchestra’s Managing Director Thomas Schmidt-Ott light a sensational firework with the DSO and an international circus ensemble. Breathtaking artistry, the funniest clowns and the most virtuoso clarinets the Tempodrom has ever seen enter into a symbiosis of symphonic beauty, glittering elegance, and pure thrills.
Celebrating New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day with the DSO and Circus Roncalli has been considered the absolute highlight at the turn of the year since 2003. The shows are sold out in no time at all. Bernhard Paul, Paul Daniel and the orchestra’s Managing Director Thomas Schmidt-Ott light a sensational firework with the DSO and an international circus ensemble. Breathtaking artistry, the funniest clowns and the most virtuoso clarinets the Tempodrom has ever seen enter into a symbiosis of symphonic beauty, glittering elegance, and pure thrills.
Celebrating New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day with the DSO and Circus Roncalli has been considered the absolute highlight at the turn of the year since 2003. The shows are sold out in no time at all. Bernhard Paul, Paul Daniel and the orchestra’s Managing Director Thomas Schmidt-Ott light a sensational firework with the DSO and an international circus ensemble. Breathtaking artistry, the funniest clowns and the most virtuoso clarinets the Tempodrom has ever seen enter into a symbiosis of symphonic beauty, glittering elegance, and pure thrills.
December 1804. Furious, Beethoven scratches out the »intitolata Bonaparte« dedication on the title page of his new Third Symphony. Napoleon, who he had idealised, has truly declared himself Emperor! That does not suit the composer’s ideal of freedom. Instead, he dedicates the work, which he now calls ›Eroica‹, to a prince. That may not sound quite logical, but whatever. The music is bombastic. »Heaven and earth must shake at its performance!« a student of Beethoven’s wrote. Which holds true until this day.
Listen, join in, have fun, discover music – the radio3 Children’s Concerts of the DSO are the perfect introduction to the wonderful world of classical music. In six concerts per season, children of primary school age can get to know the orchestra’s enchanting sound machine in all its facets. Together with the DSO, moderator Christian Schruff takes the six to twelve-year-old concertgoers on entertaining and interactive voyages of discovery, tells exciting stories, and presents great music. Already before the concert, at the Open House in the foyer, the young music fans can get to know various instruments together with members of the orchestra, have their faces painted, do crafts, sing, and much more.
Daniel Barenboim, Simon Rattle, Yevgeny Kissin, Cecilia Bartoli, Daniil Trifonov and many others presented themselves to a Berlin audience for the first time here: kicked off in 1959 under the title ›RIAS stellt vor‹ (RIAS presents), the ›Debüt im Deutschlandfunk Kultur‹ concert series presents the most interesting young musicians through the present day; they can be heard not only in the Berliner Philharmonie, but also on the radio all across Germany. Get to know tomorrow’s stars today alongside the DSO!
A match made in heaven, and yet at the same time: earthly, lively and of the highest calibre: NDR Bigband meets the DSO. Not crossover. Not a stylistic mish-mash. But rather two top ensembles meeting as equals, with Nikki Iles, British bandleader, Geir Lysne, Norwegian arranger and composer, and Wayne Marshall, conductor specialised in gripping orchestra grooves. New sounds for the Philharmonic Hall in Berlin—and on the next day, on the banks of the Elbe as well.
Classical music and club sounds – at the Casual Concerts you can experience the best of both worlds. They’re an ideal way to get initiated into the world of classical music, and there’s a world premiere in November: Big band meets orchestra, Ravel encounters the 21st century. And then the perfect contrast in the Lounge afterwards – with a live act and a DJ.
»I went on stage, and this big black thing was standing there … with gold inside and long, open strings—I felt like I was in a movie! So I stood on the piano bench and first I took a look inside.« That’s how the Portuguese pianist Maria João Pires recalls her first performance when she was five. She is proud that music never became a job, but remained a calling. A grande dame whose playing has lost none of its grace and virtuosity, even at the age of eighty.
»Noise, scandal, mischief, subversion!« the press railed in 1895 about the Berlin premiere of Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony. Some 120 years later, the original score of the ›Resurrection Symphony‹ sold at auction at Sotheby’s for EUR 5.3 million. Back then, it was conducted in Berlin by the composer himself. Now Robin Ticciati will bid his adieu as DSO Music Director with this revolutionary work, which surpasses all the usual dimensions and today is one of Mahler’s most popular symphonies.
»Noise, scandal, mischief, subversion!« the press railed in 1895 about the Berlin premiere of Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony. Some 120 years later, the original score of the ›Resurrection Symphony‹ sold at auction at Sotheby’s for EUR 5.3 million. Back then, it was conducted in Berlin by the composer himself. Now Robin Ticciati will bid his adieu as DSO Music Director with this revolutionary work, which surpasses all the usual dimensions and today is one of Mahler’s most popular symphonies.
Listen, join in, have fun, discover music – the radio3 Children’s Concerts of the DSO are the perfect introduction to the wonderful world of classical music. In six concerts per season, children of primary school age can get to know the orchestra’s enchanting sound machine in all its facets. Together with the DSO, moderator Christian Schruff takes the six to twelve-year-old concertgoers on entertaining and interactive voyages of discovery, tells exciting stories, and presents great music. Already before the concert, at the Open House in the foyer, the young music fans can get to know various instruments together with members of the orchestra, have their faces painted, do crafts, sing, and much more.
His music sounds like Giacomo Puccini, like Leonard Bernstein – and like Hollywood film scores. No wonder: Aaron Zigman is one of the most famous exponents of his craft. He has composed many catchy tunes for US movies; typically, his soundscapes have a highly dramatic intensity. You can hear that in ›Émigré‹ as well, a romantic love story during a tragic chapter in human history. Reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet, ›Émigré‹ tells of the love between two people in the late 1930s. 18,000 Jews fled Europe, and Shanghai provided refuge for them. This message, performed by a spectacular vocal ensemble, makes ›Émigré‹ a triumphant, life-affirming work. After major successes in Shanghai and New York, the DSO will perform the European premiere.
Superwoman and women’s activist from the get-go—and a radical one to boot: Ethel Smyth (1858–1944) went on a hunger strike in order to study at the Leipzig Conservatory. She threw stones for women’s right to vote—and wound up in prison for it. She composed sonatas, songs, concerts, wrote books, was the first woman whose opera was performed in New York. She met Clara Schumann and Pyotr Tchaikovsky and took on Brahms. And she knew: »The hour has struck for woman's work in the music world.«
Bruckner was not only a fantastic organist—some of his habits were also quite strange. He loved to count: rocks, leaves on trees, beads, windows on house fronts ... But his symphonies were a different thing: though he composed eleven, he acknowledged only nine of them. And even with those, he was not initially successful; the Seventh from 1884 was the first to take off. Robin Ticciati has conducted many of them, and has continued to programme them since his DSO debut with the Fourth. For Ticciati, Bruckner is a »real person with a beating heart«.
Concert Pulse