Berlin Phil takes flight to US
OrchestrasThe orchestra is off on its 25th US tour – 8 concerts, 2 programs, in 5 cities over 14 days. Kirill Petrenko conducts.
The first tour was in 1955 with a new conductor – 26 concerts in 21 cities, travelling by bus, sleeping in motels.
‘It was seen as a bridge-building exercise, fostering goodwill between Germany and the USA,’ they said, back in the day.
photo: Rudolf Kessler/BPO archive
why don’t you list cities and dates?
https://www.berliner-philharmoniker.de/en/concerts/on-tour/
Dude,they didnt even say eho the nee conductor was. Not Karajan I dont think. Id like to know what Leontyne Price thought of some of these jerls. Sam Barber was good to her he knew about minorities!
8 concerts in 14 days? Easy after the London orchestras!
I can’t say on which of the 25 tours I heard Karajan conduct Bruckner 8 in Orchestra Hall Chicago, one of the highlights of my life.
I will hear both programs of the current tour, each of which I have already heard (as recently as last Friday) on Digital Concert Hall. Distinctive opportunities of the current era!
Even in Chicago we will finally hear a great live concert.
I’m kind of disappointed with the programs – Bruckner 5 on one; on the other Isle of the Dead, Dvorak 7 and Hillary Hahn playing the Korngold concerto. The Berlin Phil is one of the few orchestras that can sell out pretty much anywhere in the world without bringing along a soloist, so giving over nearly half the program – even to this great artist – seems pointless. Especially in Washington DC, since Midori played the Korngold with the NSO two years ago, Ms. Hahn played it with them last season. Now she’s back playing it again with the Berliners.
Agree, it’s a bit like bringing coals to Newcastle (or owls to Athens), despite the fact that Korngold’s violin concerto is one of the best of the 20th century, ending with a fantastic Hollywoodesque theme.
https://youtu.be/2Co_l4kf2ts?feature=shared&t=270
Maybe people took the adage about owls too seriously: I don’t remember any while growing up in Athens.
We need everything in moderation: artisan cheese, classical music staples, underperformed gems… Dvorak’s New World Symphony richly deserves to be performed regularly, but why not substitute half of its performances with Dvorak tone poems or other symphonies, like the 7th? On the other end, sometimes presenters and artists suddenly overcompensate on underperformed works of popular composers: I remember a time when Mahler’s 7th was all the rage. More recently we overdosed on Florence Price. Evidently Korngold’s violin concerto is now too much in the spotlight. Let us hope it will not burn out.
While the federal government is dissolving, and the first self-proclamations are taking place.
As if the presence or not in town of one of the city’s five major orchestras has any bearing…
That said, why does Berlin need five “major” orchestras when Germany urgently needs to support the dwindling car industry and invest in weapons, hospitals, bridges and roads? Isn’t one ensemble enough to please the few remaining music enthusiasts?
[irony]
I can’t wait to hear the Berliners under Petrenko next week in NYC.
Fun tip for New York attendees:
One of the works to be performed is Rachmaninoff’s The Isle of the Dead. The composer was inspired by a black-and-white reproduction of Arnold Böcklin’s masterpiece Die Toteninsel. Böcklin produced several different versions of the painting. One version can be seen at the Met Museum.
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/435683
(The online reproduction looks darker than the original.)
“Back in the day”: NYT February 21, 1955: https://nyti.ms/4hO8DtN
Berlin Philharmonic Manager Explains Nazi Membership, Silent on Tour Protest
BERLIN, Feb. 20—Dr. Gerhart von Westerman, manager of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, could say nothing today about the effect of a protest made in New York yesterday against the orchestra’s scheduled appearance next month at Carnegie Hall.
I would stay home, away from the New American Reich.
I’m going on Sunday. Can’t wait.
I saw the Philharmoniker perform Mahler’s 7th in Chicago in 2022 (and am unlikely to see them this year, concert’s only a week away) and I must say that, though it was a great concert, the hall simply isn’t befitting of any great orchestra, the acoustics are much too dry. Even days apart the orchestra will see the difference between Symphony Hall and Carnegie Hall as night and day.
I argue, not even facetiously, that they should come up to Milwaukee! Not too far away to grab from the huge Chicago market and much better acoustics to boot.
Why no California?? We have the best weather.
And the best living composer…
They are not going further west than Michigan.
Is Illinois not west of Michigan?