Berliner Philharmoniker 2022/23: Silvesterkonzert mit Kirill Petrenko und Jonas Kaufmann

John Williams has made cinematic history with his film scores and transported entire generations into his musical worlds. He has composed the soundtracks for cinema blockbusters such as Star Wars, Jurassic Park, E.T. and Harry Potter. In this concert, he conducts some of his most famous film classics. At the same time, this is his debut on the podium of the Berliner Philharmoniker. May the Force be with him ...

Released as a memorial for the great Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, who passed away on 27 April 2007, this DVD contains one bonafide cello concerto, the Schumann Cello Concerto in A minor, and two tone poems with prominent cello parts, Ernest Bloch's Schelomo and Richard Strauss' Don Quixote. Rostropovich mastered the Schumann in several famous recordings. Here, conducted by Leonard Bernstein, he provides a splendid performance. Featuring his trademark powerful technique, smooth legato and crisp vibrato, the Romantic roots of the concerto are never hidden for long, despite the relatively cool playing of the Orchestre National de France.

In 2007, the Berliner Philharmoniker celebrated their 125th anniversary. Film director Enrique Sánchez Lansch took this occasion to tell a hitherto unknown chapter in the history of the Berliner Philharmoniker: the years of National Socialism from 1933 to 1945. The film, “The Reichsorchester”, made in collaboration with musicians of the orchestra and its archive.

The Berliner Philharmoniker dedicate their New Year's Eve concert to famous lovers from the repertoire, embodied with intensity by French tenor Benjamin Bernheim. On the program: Don José (Carmen by Georges Bizet), Lenski (Eugene Onegin by Tchaikovsky), Werther (in the opera of the same name by Jules Massenet) and Romeo (Charles Gounod's Roméo et Juliette). Conducted by Kirill Petrenko, works by Gabriel Fauré, Emmanuel Chabrier, and George Gershwin round out this festive program.

Repertoire Modest Mussorgsky: Night on Bald Mountain; Antonín Dvořák: Song to the Moon from “Rusalka”, Op. 114; Aram Chatschaturjan: Adagio from “Spartacus”; Richard Strauss: Final Scene from “Capriccio”, Op. 85; Richard Wagner: Overture to “Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen”; E. W. Korngold: Mariettas Lied from “Die tote Stadt”; Richard Strauss: Zueignung, Op. 10 No. 1; Sir Edward Elgar: Salut d’amour; Giacomo Puccini: Donde lieta uscì from “La bohème”; Tu che di gel sei cinta from “Turandot”; Ruggero Leoncavallo: Musette svaria sulla bocca viva from “La bohème”; Mimì Pinson, la biondinetta from “La bohème”; Piotr Tchaikovsky: “Romeo and Juliet” (Fantasy Overture)

Each year, the annual Europakonzert concert on May 1st. Due to the worldwide covid pandemic, a very comforting programme was selected for this years concert, to encourage and to thank people in Europe and worldwide. Arvo Pärt's Fratres for string orchestra and percussion, György Ligeti's Ramifications for string orchestra, Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings, and Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 4.

The Berlin Philharmonic brings in the New Year with a festive concert featuring performances of music by Gershwin, Bernstein, Porter & Loewe.

One day in June 2003, thousands of people came to the Waldbühne Park to spend the night with Gershwin, the composer of Porgy and Bess, the super energised Seiji Ozawa conducting the venerable Berliner Philharmoniker and the famous Marcus Roberts jazz trio.

Sir Simon Rattle was in no doubt: the performance of the St Matthew Passion which he realised together with the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Rundfunkchor Berlin in 2010 was for him “the single most important thing we ever did here”. Critics around the world agreed. They praised the semi-staged “ritualization” by American star-director Peter Sellars, as well as the outstanding musical performances by the soloists, including Magdalena Kožená, Christian Gerhaher, Thomas Quasthoff and Mark Padmore as the Evangelist.

An extraordinary performance by the Berlin Philharmonic under the baton of Claudio Abbado, recorded in the Great Hall of the Musikverein in Vienna in 1997 to commemorate the centenary of the death of Johannes Brahms. With soprano Barbara Bonney and baritone Bryn Terfel with the acclaimed Swedish Radio Choir and Eric Ericson Chamber Choir.

Claudio Abbado once remarked that, “With Beethoven, you never stop learning“ and indeed: the 75-year-old Milanese maestro has constantly reworked the symphonies of the master from Bonn (1770-1827). When they performed and recorded all nine Beethoven Symphonies at the Academia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, the nationwide Italian newspaper La Repubblica simply called it: “The most wonderful symphonic cycle of the past decade.” Each of the symphonies is of course a masterpiece in itself – each represents the composer’s musical idiom at a particular stage in his development. Be it the famous Pastorale, his 6th symphony, the popular 9th, with its characteristic motifs, the less commonly performed 4th or the 7th, which marked his leaning toward romantic undertones – Abbado’s interpretations are the fruit of decades of involvement with Beethoven.