Schedule

Israeli violinist Itzhak Perlman and the Berlin Philharmonic perform the Violin Concerto, Op. 61 by Ludwig van Beethoven under the direction of Daniel Barenboim. Beethoven dedicated his Violin Concerto to his colleague Franz Clement, a prominent violinist of the time. The first of the piece was presented in Vienna in 1806. The piece was only interpreted a handful of times during the following decades. However, the work took a new lease of life in 1844, when the young violinist Joseph Joachim, barely 12 years old, performed with the London Philharmonic Society, under the direction of Mendelssohn. Since then, Beethoven's Violin Concerto has been one of the most important concertos in the classical repertoire. This work, renowned for its wide range of cadenzas, poses a great technical and intellectual challenge, brilliantly picked up by Perlman and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

Every year at the end of August the renowned Early Music Festival takes place in the Dutch city of Utrecht. It is the largest festival focused on early music in the world, attracting an audience of more than 70,000 visitors. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 edition of the festival offered an alternative program that included both live concerts on location and daily livestreams of concerts and archival recordings. As part of this festival, Canadian fortepianist Anders Muskens performs a recital consisting of various sonatas by the German Baroque composer Franz Ignaz Beck, such as L’Éveillée and La Sophie. This performance was recorded at the Gertrudiskapel in Utrecht, August 25, 2020.

This 2016 concert at Chambord Castle in France under the direction of Hervé Niquet features 70 musicians that gave a spectacular performance of Handel‘s Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks. In between Le Concert Spirituel also plays Concerto Grosso’s No. 4 and No. 5 also by Georg Friedrich Handel. After that you can enjoy the celebrated movement of Marc- Antoine Charpentier’s Te Deum, now universally known as the signature tune of Eurovision. The music brings to mind the splendor at the court of King Louis XIV, who sojourned in Chambord on several occasions.

Pianist Jakub Kuszlik (Poland, 1996) performs Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18, during the final round of the Piano Edition of the Concours musical international de Montréal 2024 (CMIM). Kuszlik is accompanied by the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal under the baton of Xian Zhang. This performance was recorded at Maison symphonique de Montréal.

As part of the ‘Solistas del Siglo XXI’ series of the Reina Sofía School of Music in Madrid, flutist Ana Ferraz and pianist Luis Arias perform Franz Schubert’s Variations on "Trockne Blumen" from ‘Die schöne Müllerin’ D. 802; Antonín Dvořák’s Sonatina for violin and piano in G major, Op. 100 (arrangement for flute and piano by J. Galway and P. Moll); and Carl Reinecke’s Sonata Undine, Op. 167. This performance was recorded at Auditorio Sony of the Reina Sofía School of Music on May 21, 2022.

"It would be hard to find anything greater, more significant or more moving anywhere in musical life today: total harmony of mind and heart, poetry and outcry, fear and consolation, knowing and feeling," declared the Berne paper Der Bund after this stunning performance of Mahler's Resurrection Symphony in August 2003 by the newly founded Lucerne Festival Orchestra. Claudio Abbado had formed this ensemble from famous instrumentalists, celebrated chamber-musicians and experienced soloists from the world's best orchestras, and the event was sold out months in advance. In this performance, the magnificent soloists Eteri Gvazava (soprano) and Anna Larsson (mezzo-soprano) are accompanied by Orfeón Donostiarra choir.

On 18 December 2017, the Valerius Ensemble played a Christmas concert in Concordia, Enschede. The ensemble consists of Robert Windak (violin), Annemarie van Vliegen (violin), Eva Šušliková (viola) and Réne Geesing (cello). The program consists of “Das neugeborne Kindelein” from Bachs Cantata BWV 122, the Largo from Vivaldi’s Winter, the Allegro from Mozart’s Divertimento in D (KV. 136), Méditation from Massenet’s opera “Thaïs,” The Entertainer by Scott Joplin, the Vilja song from Léhars “Die Lustige Witwe” and the animated Romanian folk-tune Geampara. The Ensemble closes with Piazzolla’s Ave Maria (Tanti anni prima).

Bernard Haitink conducts the Berliner Philharmoniker at the Easter Festival in Baden-Baden, 2015. On the program is Ludwig van Beethoven's Violin Concerto, Op. 61. The award-winning Isabelle Faust is the soloist, and since her recordings with Claudio Abbado, she’s the first choice when it comes to this masterpiece.

Can we get into Beethoven’s creative mind, especially in the last phase of his life, when he was coping with severe hearing loss? Tom Beghin’s new recording of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas Opus 109, 110, and 111 is an artistic exploration of how Beethoven’s musicking was shaped by the work environment he created with the help of colleagues and friends. Not only does pianist Tom Beghin perform Beethoven’s trilogy of pianistic masterpieces on a magnificent new replica of Beethoven’s Broadwood piano, he uses a reconstruction of the Gehörmaschine that was mounted on the composer’s piano so he could continue to create music as his hearing declined. ‘You do hear better when you bring your head under this machine, don’t you?’ André Stein asked Beethoven. Two centuries later, we too can bring our heads under the machine and wonder: Do we hear Beethoven differently? Beghin draws us inside the hearing machine, where we feel as well as hear the essence of Beethoven’s rambunctious and irresistibly poetic musical vibrations. Inside the Hearing Machine invites us into the multisensory playground of a deaf composer for whom the machine was more than a hearing aid and who interacted with his instrument through much more than sound.

English-French pianist David Levy performs Dmitri Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87. The work is a set of twenty-four pieces for piano, one in each of the major and minor keys of the chromatic scale. Each piece is in two parts: a prelude followed by a fugue. The composer was doubtlessly inspired by J. S. Bach’s famous The Well-Tempered Clavier (BWV 846-893), a collection of forty-eight preludes and fugues published in two books. A panel member at Leipzig’s Bach competition, Shostakovich was deeply inspired by Russian pianist Tatiana Nikolayeva’s performance of Bach’s 48 Preludes and Fugues. Shostakovich wrote these pieces between the autumn of 1950 and February 1951, dedicating them to Nikolayeva, who agreed to perform the Leningrad premiere in December 1952. David Levy’s performance was recorded at the Budapest Music Center, Hungary, in September 2023.

Celebrated German violinist Isabelle Faust performs two of J. S. Bach’s incredible works for solo violin: Partita No. 2 in D minor (BWV 1004), and Sonata No. 3 in C major (BWV 1005). Both works are part of the composer’s well-known Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin (BWV 1001-1006). Partita No. 2 is made up of four dance movements, concluded by its famous Chaconne, a monumental piece within the violin repertoire. In this Chaconne, Bach develops a series of continuous variations from a theme, exploring a complex range of harmonic possibilities. Sonata No. 3 includes an extensive fugue in which Bach employs many contrapuntal techniques. In this wonderful performance, Faust shows her mastery of Bach’s technically challenging pieces. This performance was recorded at St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, Germany, in 2020.

Sergei Prokofiev based his ballet ‘Romeo and Juliet’ on William Shakespeare's famous play of the same name, telling the story of two young lovers from the feuding families Montague and Capulet. Acclaimed French choreographer Jean-Christophe Maillot created a distinctive choreography of the ballet in 1996, which has been performed to great success the world over. In his production, Maillot interprets Romeo and Juliet not as a social conflict or clan warfare governed by a strict code of honor, but as a tale of accidental tragedy that leads to the death of children more concerned with the path of love than that of hatred. This 2002 interpretation is performed by the dancers of Les Ballets de Monte Carlo. Chris Roelandt and Bernice Coppieters star in the title roles.

Italian cellist Silvia Chiesa and Italian pianist Maurizio Baglini perform Frédéric Chopin’s Introduction and Polonaise brillante in C major, Op. 3. This performance was recorded at Sala Verdi of the Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi in Milan, Italy, on November 4, 2024.

Performed in the grandeur of Berlin's foremost opera house, the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, the Mozart Celebration is dedicated to the life's work of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. This one-time-only gala concert features exuberant Mozart pieces, performed by some of the world’s leading singers and musicians. Conductor Julien Salemkour leads these beautiful performances played by the Staatskapelle Berlin. The star solists are Nicolaj Znaider (violin), Thomas Quasthoff (baritone) and Sylvia Schwartz (soprano). The program features Ouverture from la Clemenza di Tito, 'Violin Concerto No. 5', the song 'Chi sa, chi sa, qual sia', Piano Concerto No. 23, the aria 'Per questa bella mano', Papageno's Aria from the Magic Flute, the duet 'Papageno-Papagena' from The Magic Flute, and Symphony No. 40.

Few Italian theatres can boast of being an absolute point of reference for national and world culture. The Teatro Regio in Turin is both a symbol of excellence in the national operatic tradition and a prestigious stage hosting operas, ballets, concerts, and musicals of great substance. This short documentary offers a behind-the-scenes tour of the Teatro Regio Torino and bears witness to the enviable reputation that has prevailed since its opening in 1740.

The Rückert-Lieder are a collection of five art songs by Mahler, set to poems by Friedrich Rückert, showcasing his gift for intimate and deeply personal musical expression in a style that balances simplicity with profound emotional complexity, often exploring themes of nature, loss, and transcendence. The songs offer a rare glimpse into Mahler's soul, revealing a deep sensitivity and the gift of expressing complex human feelings with an exquisite and seemingly simple musical beauty.

Mahler's Symphony No. 6 is a monumental work exploring deep personal tragedy, incorporating a unique, famous "hammer" blows that symbolize the inevitable blows of fate. This symphony's intense emotional power, epic scope, and the composer's eventual wrestling with fate and personal loss make it an unforgettable, profoundly moving experience for audiences.

Sir Simon Rattle leads the Berlin Philharmonic in a performance of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27. After the disastrous premiere of the composer’s Symphony No. 1 in 1897, Rachmaninoff seriously doubted his ability as a symphonist. Almost a decade later, in October 1906, he started composing his Symphony No. 2. Months of revisions followed. He finished this large orchestral work in the summer of 1907, followed by a highly successful 1908 premiere in St. Petersburg. This performance at the magnificent Teatro Real in Madrid, Spain is part of the Europakonzert 2011.