Schedule

The beautiful Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg formed the background for the 1996 edition of the annual Europakonzert of the Berliner Philharmoniker. In honour of the Russian hosts, the concert opened with highlights from Prokofiev's 'Romeo and Juliet', followed by the Cavatina from Rachmaninoff's opera 'Aleko'. After the intermission, Kolja Blacher featured in the two 'Violin Romances' by Beethoven, followed by a performance of his 'Seventh Symphony'. The orchestra is led by maestro Claudio Abbado.

One of today’s most distinguished conductors, Franz Welser-Möst conducts The Cleveland Orchestra in a performance featuring works from the oeuvre of Johannes Brahms. The concert begins with the Academic Festival Overture, written in honor of the University of Breslau, which awarded the composer an honorary doctorate in philosophy. This is followed by Brahms only Violin Concerto (in D major), described by violinist Joseph Joachim, whom it was originally written for, as one of the four great German violin concerti. This performance features violin soloist Julia Fischer. It was recorded at Severance Hall in Cleveland, USA, in 2014.

Manfred Honeck conducts Yo-Yo Ma and the Berlin Philharmonic in a performance of Schumann's Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 129 from the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden 2016.

The Kuijken Ensemble is made up of the three Belgian Kuijken brothers on flute, violin, and viola da gamba, as well as harpsichordist Robert Kohnen. The brothers don’t look alike, but their shared musical heritage is evident. Together, The Kuijken Ensemble are among the most distinguished present-day early-music specialists. Though each has branched out into conducting and other far-reaching ways of propagating authentic Baroque style, they are each masters of a different set of instruments. Their occasional reunions for concerts are legendary. With J. S. Bach's The Musical Offering, played here in a shorter score, they show off their stylish flair and extensive experience. Bach’s late masterpiece, The Musical Offering (1747) is a homage to King Frederick the Great of Prussia in Potsdam. Recorded in the beautiful setting of the historical Old Town Hall in Leipzig during the Bach year of 2000, the film captures some of the essence of the composer’s era.

In May and June 2021, Argentinian star pianist Martha Argerich celebrated her 80th birthday performing at Château de Chantilly, France. In this concert, recorded at the festival Les Coups de Cœur de Chantilly, Argerich is joined by three musicians who are particularly close to her heart: cellist Mischa Maisky, violinist Maxim Vengerov, and pianist Iddo Bar-Shaï. They perform with the orchestra Les Siècles under the baton of Romanian-Austrian conductor Ion Marin. The concert opens with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in C major, Op. 56, with Argerich, Vengerov, and Maisky as soloists. Written in 1803, it is Beethoven’s only concerto for more than one solo instrument. This is followed by Camille Saint-Saëns’s musical suite The Carnival of the Animals (Le carnaval des animaux), featuring Argerich and Bar-Shaï as the pianists. This musical suite from 1886 consists of 14 movements, each depicting a different animal. The work was published posthumously in 1922, as Saint-Saëns was concerned that his animal miniatures, full of delightful jokes, might damage his reputation as a serious composer. This performance was recorded at Château de Chantilly, on May 4, 2021.

Join composer and presenter John Anderson as he conducts a reflective and celebratory event honouring Saint Patrick. Set in the magnificent St Patrick's RC Cathedral, choirs from all over the island of Ireland and further join in a unique evening of music and spoken word. Nowhere is the commemoration of Saint-Patrick more meaningful as in the city of Armagh in Northern Ireland, where Saint Patrick built his first stone church. From this city, all along the Saint Patrick’s pilgrimage trail to Downpatrick, there are many sights connected to his life. In the cathedral that bears his name, an evening with music and entertainment is presented to celebrate Saint Patrick. The concert and film, which featured choirs, musicians and performers from the North, South, East and West of Ireland, takes viewers on a journey through Saint Patrick’s former home via songs and musical pieces from both religious and secular traditions, showcasing not only the cathedral but also the landscapes of Armagh and Ireland’s Ancient East.

Pianist Michelle Candotti (Italy, 1996) performs Barbara Assiginaak’s Mzizaakok Miiniwaa Mzizaakoonsak (Horseflies and Deerflies); Franz Liszt’s Après une lecture du Dante, fantasia quasi sonata (Années de pèlerinage, deuxième année, S. 161: No. 7); ‘Pavane’ from George Enescu’s Suite No. 2 in D major, Op. 10; Étude No. 111 in G minor from Hélène de Montgeroult’s Études; and Sergei Prokofiev’s Sonata No. 7 in B-flat major, Op. 83, during the solo recital of the two-part semi-final round of the Piano Edition of the Concours musical international de Montréal 2024 (CMIM). This performance was recorded at the Bourgie Hall of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.

Maestro Herbert Blomstedt makes his debut with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra at 2020’s Lucerne Festival conducting Ludwig van Beethoven’s celebrated Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Op. 55, “Eroica”. The sprightly Swedish conductor celebrated his 93rd birthday just one month before this performance. This remarkable performance was recorded at the Lucerne Culture and Congress Center (KKL), Switzerland, in August 2020.

In this recital, Roberto Giordano plays the Six Pieces for Piano, op. 118 of Brahms, a collection completed in 1893 and dedicated to Clara Schumann who will be the penultimate produced by the composer during his lifetime. The concert program also includes two Beethoven sonatas, the famous Moonlight Sonata No. 14, op. 27, and Sonata No. 31, op. 110, one of the last sonatas signed by the composer. This concert was recorded at Villa Visconti Borromeo Litta, in the Italian city of Lainate, in 2017. Directed by: Pietro Tagliaferri.

The documentary “Clara Haskil - Le mystère de l’interprète” (2017) tells the remarkable life story of Romanian pianist Clara Haskil (1895-1960). Born in Bucharest into a Jewish family, she began her career as a child prodigy, entering the Bucharest Conservatory at a very young age. She continued her music studies in Vienna and Paris. Haskil suffered from chronic health issues and lived through two world wars, which held back her career. Only after WWII, Haskil’s fame began to take off and she finally enjoyed international recognition. She performed as a soloist over the world with the foremost orchestras, and collaborated with acclaimed musicians including Eugène Ysaÿe, George Enescu, and Pablo Casals.

Roberto Prosseda (1975) performs Mozart's Piano Sonata No. 5 (KV. 283) and four Impromptus Op. 90 by Franz Schubert. The performance ends with Chopin's technically demanding Ballade No. 4, Op. 52. Prosseda is particularly noted for his performances of newly discovered works by Mendelssohn and has recorded a nine-CD series for Decca of the piano works of Mendelssohn. Since 2012, Prosseda also gives lecture-concerts with the robot pianist TeoTronico, as educational or family concerts, to demonstrate differences between a literal production of music and human interpretation.

Sir Simon Rattle conducts the Berlin Philharmonic in the 2016 edition of the Europakonzert. This time, it takes place at the beautiful Baroque church of Røros, a Norwegian mining town whose intact picturesque old town makes it a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The talented Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang is the star soloist in Mendelssohn’s songful Violin Concerto, Op. 64, which she plays with warmth, elegance and effortless virtuosity.

Since his spectacular debut recital at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw in 2002, pianist Misha Fomin has become an indispensable part of Dutch musical life. National and international press praise his playing for its fluently natural virtuosity, rich color palette, and great musical intelligence. In this concert, recorded at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Fomin performs a number of pieces including Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (1874). The movements are separated by the Promenade: a recurring, varied theme that evokes the walk from one painting to the next. The various promenades are variations on the same theme, which recurs in two other movements (Cum mortus in lingua mortua and The Bogatyr Gates (In the Capital in Kiev)). Mussorgsky wrote this cycle in three weeks’ time in 1874. When Mussorgsky visited the exhibition of his friend, the late painter Viktor Hartmann, he wrote to a friend that “sounds and ideas hung in the air, I am gulping and overeating, and can barely manage to scribble them on paper.”

In May 2019, the new principal conductor of the Gewandhaus, Andris Nelsons, presented Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5 with his orchestra in combination with Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with outstanding violinist Baiba Skride as the soloist. In this composition, the violin does not allow itself a break, continually tells its dark story and gets into a vicious circle of ostinato Passacaglia bass lines again and again falls into beguilingly beautiful singing. Tchaikovsky initially thought his 'Symphony of Fate' was a failure and believed himself to be at the end of his creative powers. It was probably the composer's nature, plagued by self-doubt, that made it almost impossible for him to develop a self-confident attitude to his own creative power. Between this two works, Skride performs Stravinsky's Elegy for Solo Violin.

Many people live in a closed world. What happens to them when they step onto an arena where they can be themselves, free of their usual roles and status? In the film Closed we encounter four completely different people who once a week leave their everyday lives and get together in a closed café, where they get the opportunity and help to relax and momentarily distance themselves from reality. These encounters have a certain touch of ritual to them. Here, the participants dare to open themselves up to external impressions. They allow themselves to be affected by each other’s liberated exposures and to respond positively to what society at large would regard as strange behaviour. Two men, one woman and a proprietor who is obsessed with cleaning. The smallest speck of dust must be removed immediately. He always has a dust cloth to hand. This externalized and bizarre behaviour is challenging to himself as well as to those around him. Music: Zoltan Kodály’s Sonata for solo cello Op. 8 by cellist Truls Mørk.

Polish conductor Marta Gardolińska conducts the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) in a concert program consisting of Lili Boulanger’s D’un Martin de Printemps, Marc-André Dalbavie’s Concerto for Flute, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 in F minor, Op. 36. The luminous optimism of the young Boulanger is poles apart from the raw passion and white-hot melodies of Tchaikovsky’s semi-autobiographical symphony. LSO principal flute Gareth Davies brings out all the dazzle and daring of Dalbavie's 21st-century classic. The program closes with Prayer for Ukraine by composer Valentin Silvestrov. This concert was recorded at LSO St Luke’s in London, UK, on May 18, 2022.

The documentary Mozart in Vienna explores how the composer took charge of his own works by becoming the first freelance composer. After trips to Salzburg and Paris, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s career flourished in Vienna. Upon completing the opera Die Entführung aus dem Serail in 1782, he performed regularly as a pianist, and thrived as a composer. The opera was performed throughout German-speaking Europe, helping Mozart become an established and financially prosperous composer. After Mozart befriended Joseph Haydn in Vienna in 1784, he dedicated his six string quartets to the latter, who by then had already composed a great number of string quartets. We are fortunate to be able to still enjoy the great works Mozart composed during his days in Vienna.

Dutch choreographer Hans van Manen (1932) is internationally recognized as one of the grand masters of contemporary ballet. His over 150 ballets all bear his distinct signature, featuring a great clarity in structure, refined simplicity and an aversion to decorative frills. In this tribute to the great choreographer, dancers of the Dutch National Ballet perform three masterpieces from Van Manen’s extensive oeuvre. The program opens with Metaforen (1965), set to Daniel-Jean-Yves Lesur’s Variations for organ and strings—a groundbreaking work featuring one of the first male pas de deux, considered provocative at the time. This is followed by Adagio Hammerklavier (1973), set to the third movement, Adagio sostenuto, of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata, Op. 106. The program concludes with Frank Bridge Variations (2005), written to Benjamin Britten’s Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, Op. 10. This performance was recorded at Opéra Berlioz, Le Corum in Montpellier, France, in 2017.

Conductor Jan Latham-Koenig leads the Flanders Symphony Orchestra in this concert recorded at Concertgebouw Brugge, Belgium, on April 21, 2016. The program opens with Felix Mendelssohn’s concert overture Die Hebriden, Op. 26 (The Hebrides). During a trip to Scotland, the composer was deeply impressed by the natural splendor of Staffa, an island of the Inner Hebrides, which inspired him to compose his concert overture. Next on the program is Edvard Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16, featuring Pascal Amoyel as the pianist. It is the composer’s only concerto. Grieg composed the work in 1868, drawing inspiration from Norwegian folk music. The program ends with Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92. The work is very popular, especially because of its touching second movement. At the Allegretto’s 1813 premiere, the audience demanded an immediate encore.

This Sonata for Violin and Harpsichord No. 1 BWV 1014 is the first of the set of sonatas Johann Sebastian Bach composed before 1725, probably during his time as chapel master in Köthen. Presumably, he wrote these sonatas for Prince Leopold and later adapted them for further use in Leipzig. Maybe this is why these pieces are well playable for amateurs, while every sonata still has the finesse that can offer a challenge to professional musicians. The different pieces are meant to be a set, just like the Brandenburg concertos.

During the New Year’s Gala 2010, the Berlin Philharmonic perform under the baton of Gustavo Dudamel, whose infectious energy and exceptional artistry have made him one of the most sought-after conductors by orchestras and opera companies around the world. They welcome mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča, who has become one of the world’s most famous singers within just a few years. On the program are various works by French composers, like Berlioz’ Le Carnival Romain, Overture, Op. 9 and D’Amour l’ardente flamme’ from La Damnation de Faust (Op. 24), Saint-Saëns’ ‘Mon cœur s’ouvre à ta voix’ and ‘Danse Bacchanale’ from his opera Samson et Dalila and the ‘Habanera’, ‘Seguidilla’ and ‘Chanson Bohème’ from Bizet’s Carmen. The concert concludes with de Falla’s Suite No. 2 from the ballet ‘El sombrero de tres picos’.