ConcertPulse
Kirill Petrenko with Rachmaninoff’s “Francesca da Rimini”
Philharmonie Berlin, Main Auditorium (Berlin)
Hatred, jealousy and loss: Sergei Rachmaninoff creates a dark world with powerful colours in his one-act opera Francesca da Rimini. Against this backdrop, the heroine’s brief happiness in love shines all the more brightly. Kirill Petrenko presents the impassioned score with acclaimed soloists in a concert performance. Sofia Gubaidulina’s work The Wrath of God is almost apocalyptically dramatic. And here, too, it is about the hatred that – says the composer – “grows in this world with such force and intensity that it inevitably touches me.” The programme opens with one of the most popular works of American orchestral music: Samuel Barber’s touching and intimate Adagio for strings.