Schedule

The 2007 Europa-Konzert takes place in Berlin, on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of the Berliner Philharmoniker. Under the theme "The Year 1882", the acclaimed orchestra is lead by conductor Sir Simon Rattle as it interprets Brahms’ “Concerto for violin, cello and orchestra”, his Fourth Symphony and Wagners’ “Prelude to Act I” from Parsifal - the piece that marked the orchestra's first recorded work of September 1913 under the baton of Alfred Hertz. The soloists are Lisa Batiashvili (violin) and Truls Mørk (cello), established as sought-after young virtuosos and appearing regularly with leading orchestras and in recitals throughout the world. The “Kraftwerk und Kabelwerk Oberspree (power and cable factory)”, the remarkable venue of this concert, is one of the most impressive historical industrial building from the late 19th century in Berlin. As its impressive presence is infused with Brahms and Wagner, there is an air of total commitment, only enhanced further by the unusual surroundings. The collaboration of Lisa Batiashvili and Truls Mørk ensures a moving performance of Brahms’s last orchestral work, his Double Concerto. Following this, Rattle and the orchestra continue to demonstrate their outstanding musicianship, delivering Wagner's amazingly fresh and dynamic Fourth Symphony.

Directed in 2012 by Enrique Sánchez Lansch, the documentary The 12 Cellists follows the 12 cellists of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Since 1972, this group is a staple of the international musical universe. Whether they play classical music, jazz, tango or avant-garde music, these talented musicians invariably enthrall audiences with the wide range of unique and bewitching sounds they produce with their cellos. Their combination of seriousness and humor, depth, and lightness promises to captivate listeners of all ages.

Maestro Bernard Haitink leads the Berliner Philharmoniker in a performance of Igor Stravinsky's Le sacre du printemps (‘The Rite of Spring’). Stravinksy composed the ballet’s score in 1913 for Sergei Diaghilev's itinerant ballet company Ballets Russes. The work’s sensational première at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris caused a riot in the audience in response to the avant-garde nature of the music and choreography. The score, written for one of Stravinsky’s largest orchestras, features harsh dissonances and complex rhythms. Despite its scandalous premiere, the work gained great critical acclaim. Le sacre du printemps is now considered one of the great masterpieces in classical music history, which influenced many 20th-century composers. This performance was recorded at the Royal Albert Hall in London, UK, as part of Europakonzert 1993.

Soprano Heidi Baumgartner (Austria, 1998) and pianist Asuka Tagami (Japan, 1991) perform Franz Schubert’s Suleika I, Op. 14 No. 1, D. 720; ‘Er ist’s’ from Hugo Wolf’s Mörike-Lieder; Bart Visman’s Vermeer’s Gold; ‘Sua katselen’ (Looking at you) from Kaija Saariaho’s Leino-Laulut (Leino songs); and ‘Pantomime’ and ‘Apparition’ from Claude Debussy’s Quatre chansons de jeunesse, during the semi-finals of the International Vocal Competition 2021 – Lied Duo. This performance was recorded at Het Noordbrabants Museum in ’s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands.

Soloist Aleksander Madzar and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra directed by Andre Previn join forces in a performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 27, KV 595, recorded at Vienna's Schönbrunn palace. In 1791, with his life cruelly and rapidly ending, Mozart once again turned to the compositional style which reflected his personality: the concerto for piano and orchestra. His last piano concerto, which turned out to be an uplifting composition, regales its audience with a lyrical children's song, invoking the joys of youth and springtime.

Claude Debussy’s symphonic sketches for orchestra known collectively as ‘La Mer’ evoke a richly varied vision of the sea. The first part (‘De l’aube á midi sur la mer’) calls up a morning and afternoon at sea, the second (‘Jeux de vagues’) echoes the play of the waves, and the third and final part (‘Dialogue du vent et de la mer’) conjures the communing voices of wind and waves. Debussy knew his sea, the Mediterranean, intimately both from childhood visits to Cannes and from his Italian travels later in life.

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.

Soprano Erika Baikoff (United States, 1994) and pianist Gary Beecher (Ireland, 1993) perform Franz Schubert’s ‘Suleika I, Was bedeutet die Bewegung’, Op. 14, No. 1 (D. 720); Die Blumensprache, Op. 173, No. 5 (D. 519); and, Die Gebüsche, D. 646; ‘Lied vom Winde’ and ‘Der Knabe und das Immlein’ from Hugo Wolf’s Mörike-Lieder; ‘Fleur jetée’ from Gabriel Fauré’s Quatre melodies, Op. 39; ‘C’ from Francis Poulenc’s Deux poèmes de Louis Aragon, FP 122; ‘Les lilas qui avaient fleuri’ from Lili Boulanger’s Clairières dans le ciel; Johanna Bordewijk-Roepman’s ‘Oranje may-lied’; and, ‘Eti letniye nochi’ (These summer nights) from Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Twelve romances, Op. 14, during the final round of the International Vocal Competition 2019 – Lied Duo. This performance was recorded at Theater aan de Parade in ‘s-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands.

On December 24, 2011, one of the world’s most renowned classical orchestras, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, celebrated the 75th anniversary of its founding. The film portrays the orchestra and its eventful history against the backdrop of Israel and the holocaust. Interwoven with individual biographies and archival footage, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra’s 75 years of history are brought back to life in concerts featuring Arturo Toscanini, Arthur Rubinstein, Leonard Bernstein, Isaac Stern, Zubin Mehta, Daniel Barenboim and Itzhak Perlman. We also get the opportunity to watch the Israel Philharmonic in rehearsals, concerts and on tour

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.

René Pape perfectly embodies the new generation of opera singers: with a current and relaxed appearance, he craves new challenges and demonstrates an openness to ambitious experimentation. In the musical film My Heart Is Burning, René Pape sings and plays various roles that showcase the impressive versatility of his voice and the many facets of his personality. Directed by Sibylle Muth.

Renowned French string quartet Quatuor Ébène marked the 250th birth anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) with a remarkable project: recording all of the great composer’s sixteen string quartets. For five years, violinists Pierre Colombet and Gabriel Le Magadure, violist Marie Chilemme, and cellist Raphaël Merlin immersed themselves in Beethoven’s 650 pages of sheet music. Their efforts culminated in the performance of the composer’s complete repertoire for string quartet, which covers three decades of Beethoven's musical creativity, during six impressive concerts at Philharmonie de Paris in the autumn of 2020. This program features Quatuor Ébène performing Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 131. This concert was recorded at Philharmonie de Paris on December 16, 2020.

Conrad van Alphen leads Sinfonia Rotterdam in a performance of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 1 in G minor, Op. 13, ‘Winter Daydreams’, recorded at De Doelen in Rotterdam, the Netherlands in September 2022. Having completed a number of shorter orchestral works, Tchaikovsky embarked on a more ambitious project in March 1866: to write his first symphony. In the summer of that year, the young composer showed his still-unfinished score to his former teachers Anton Rubinstein and Nikolai Zaremba, whose harsh criticism thoroughly disillusioned him. With significant changes, the entire symphony was first performed in 1868, but Tchaikovsky further revised the work in 1874. Not only did the composer subtitle his symphony ‘Winter Daydreams’, he used descriptive titles for the first two of the four movements as well: ‘Dreams of a Winter Journey’ and ‘Land of Desolation, Land of Mists’.

The Rina Sala Gallo International Piano Competition takes place every two years in the Italian city of Monza. Founded in 1947 by Monza-born pianist Rina Sala Gallo and Brescia-born pianist Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, the competition is one of Monza’s most prestigious cultural events today. This broadcast featuring the three finalists’ best performances from the competition’s 26th edition, were recorded at the Villa Reale di Monza in October 2022. First, Young Sun Choi (South Korea, 1991) performs Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 106. After, Seunghyuk Na (South Korea, 1997) plays ‘Oiseaux tristes’ and ‘Alborada del gracioso’ from Maurice Ravel’s five-movement suite Miroirs. Next, Ivan Bašić (Serbia, 1996) performs Franz Liszt’s Mephisto Waltz No. 1. Lastly, Choi returns for a performance of Claude Debussy’s Images (Book I).

The Berliner Philharmoniker, Daniel Barenboim and Claudio Abbado star at the Europakonzert 1994 in Meiningen, Germany, performing Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 and Johannes Brahms’ Symphony No. 2. Popularly known as the Emperor Concerto and composed in Vienna between 1809 and 1811, Piano Concerto No. 5 is Beethoven’s last completed piano concerto and often performed by star pianists such as Daniel Barenboim. A few decades later in 1877, Brahms completed his Second Symphony, which is often compared to Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony given its cheerful and pastoral character.

A top-ranking female singer, four nimble-fingered born musicians, the monumental Buxheimer Codex and a stiff dose of idiosyncrasy; this is a recipe for a first-rate concert. Guillermo Pérez and David Catalunya now belong among the elite of superior keyboard players and are at their very best in this prize-winning programme of chansons and ballades by Dufay, Binchois, Ciconia and contemporaries. The eschiquiers play a major role: keyboard instruments whose strings are struck with hammers.

Mexican conductor José Areán leads the Orquesta Sinfónica de Minería in a performance of Gustav Mahler’s song cycle ‘Songs of a Wayfarer’ (Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen). Baritone Jorge Lagunes is the soloist. Written in 1884-1885, the work consists of four songs, each based on one of the composer’s own poems, detailing a young man's unfortunate love and resulting journey through the world. Mahler uses the orchestra not just for accompaniment but to create a rich, immersive emotional landscape, with musical phrases that build and recede with great power and transparency. This performance was recorded at Sala Nezahualcóyotl of the Centro Cultural Universitario in Mexico City, in 2012.

J. S. Bach’s six Brandenburg Concerto’s belong to his best-known works. The composer wrote these concertos between 1711 and 1720 and dedicated them in 1721 to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg. In celebration of the pieces’ 300th anniversary, Czech harpsichordist and conductor Václav Luks and the renowned Baroque ensemble Collegium 1704 recorded all six Brandenburg Concertos on historical instruments in 2021. The concertos are based on the Italian concerto grosso form, in which a group of solo instruments is set against a large ensemble. Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos feature remarkable combinations of solo instruments and virtuoso solos. This performance was recorded at the Hall of Mirrors in the Köthen Castle, Germany.

Sir Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra mark 150 years since the death of Hector Berlioz with his tempestuous oratorio, La damnation de Faust. La damnation de Faust is a work born of the composer’s obsession with Goethe’s legendary tale. Once a righteous scholar, Faust allows himself to be corrupted by the devil, and drags the innocent around him into desperation and death. It’s a fable that defies definition – both a tragedy and dark comedy, with a central character both wise and despicable, and a play and epic poem in one.

The Valerius Ensemble, consisting of Eeva Koskinen (violin), René Geesing (cello) and Ingo Lulofs (piano) plays Rachmaninoff’s Trio élégiaque Nr. 1 and the Finale of Dvořák’s Piano Trio No.3, Op. 65. Rachmaninoff composed this Trio in 1892 at the age of 19. The work does not have an opus number and consists only of one movement, which is highly unusual for a Piano Trio. This concert was recorded at Muziekcentrum Enschede in the Netherlands on March 18, 2018.

This documentary by Mark Perna shows the training and professional growth actions for opera singers, the promotion and enhancement of the cultural offer of the city and province of Modena and the maintenance and development of the Modenese musical tradition in the field of opera.

Conductor Eduard Topchjan leads the Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra in a performance of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, Op. 37. Russian-born pianist Maya Oganyan (*2005) makes her solo debut with the orchestra. Beethoven composed this concerto in 1800 and played the piano part himself at the piece’s premiere in 1803. Like two of his other major works –Symphony No. 5 and Piano Sonata No. 8 ‘Pathétique’ – this piano concerto is written in the key of C minor, which contributes to the work’s stormy character. As an encore, Oganyan performs Der Bote (‘The Messenger’) by Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov. This performance was recorded at the Aram Khachaturian Concert Hall in Yerevan, Armenia, in 2021.

In multidisciplinary project ‘Preludes - Danze al pianoforte’, dance and music come together in a wonderful and sophisticated show. Recognized Italian choreographer Massimo Moricone choreographed some of the most beautiful piano pieces by Frédéric Chopin, Claude Debussy, J. S. Bach, and Sergei Rachmaninoff, played by Italian pianist Costanza Principe. The protagonists are three Italy’s finest dancers: Anbeta Toromani, Alessandro Macario, and Amilcar Moret Gonzales. This performance was recorded at Teatro Romano di Verona, Italy, on July 25, 2023.

Daniel Harding leads the Orchestra and Choir of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and four vocal soloists in a magnificent performance of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Requiem in D minor, K. 626. The soloists are soprano Christiane Karg, mezzosoprano Sara Mingardo, tenor Matthew Swensen, and bass Gianluca Buratto. The Austrian Count Walsegg commissioned Mozart to compose a Requiem in July 1791 to commemorate his late wife, Anna. At the time, Mozart was busy working on his operas La clemenza di Tito and The Magic Flute. By the time he started on the Requiem, in the fall of that same year, his health was seriously declining. Mozart passed away in December 1791, leaving the Requiem uncompleted. His pupil Franz Xaver Süssmayr completed Mozart’s swan song in the form known today, based on Mozart’s sketches and possibly verbal instructions. This performance was recorded at Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence, Italy, in 2021.

Renowned French string quartet Quatuor Ébène marked the 250th birth anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) with a remarkable project: recording all of the great composer’s sixteen string quartets. For five years, violinists Pierre Colombet and Gabriel Le Magadure, violist Marie Chilemme, and cellist Raphaël Merlin immersed themselves in Beethoven’s 650 pages of sheet music. Their efforts culminated in the performance of the composer’s complete repertoire for string quartet, which covers three decades of Beethoven's musical creativity, during six impressive concerts at Philharmonie de Paris in the autumn of 2020. Quatuor Ébène explored every facet of Beethoven's string quartet repertoire: from the youthful Opus 18 string quartets to the Razumovsky, Harp, and Serioso quartets (Opus 59, 74, and 95) from his middle period, and finally, the depth of his late quartets (Opus 127 to 135). This program features Quatuor Ébène performing Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 5 in A major, Op. 18, No. 5; String Quartet No. 4 in C minor, Op. 18, No. 4; and String Quartet No. 12 in E-flat major, Op. 127. This concert was recorded at Philharmonie de Paris on December 17, 2020.