Concert information
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With Gustav Holst’s atmospheric 1916 orchestral suite The Planets, Daniel Harding embarks on a cosmic musical journey through our solar system. Each of the seven planets has its own musical character, from rugged Mars to mystical Neptune. Holst was greatly inspired by Arnold Schoenberg’s Five Orchestral Pieces, which oscillate intriguingly between late Romanticism and Modernism. Completing the programme, Brett Dean’s Komarov’s Fall was commissioned by the Berliner Philharmoniker in 2006 as a musical “asteroid” to Holst’s Planets.
Artists
Berliner Philharmoniker
Daniel Harding conductor
Ladies of the Rundfunkchor Berlin
Martina Batič Choreinstudierung
Programme
Brett Dean
Komarovʼs Fall
Arnold Schoenberg
Five Pieces for Orchestra, op. 16
Interval
Gustav Holst
The Planets
Ladies of the Rundfunkchor Berlin, Martina Batič Choreinstudierung
Main Auditorium
26 to 82 €
Introduction
19:15
Series C: Concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker
Main Auditorium
26 to 82 €
Introduction
18:15
Series B: Concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker
An orchestral space voyage
“The Planets” by Gustav Holst
In his best-known work, “The Planets”, Gustav Holst set the alleged astrological characteristics of seven celestial bodies in our solar system to music. The result is a planetary character study that also captures human traits in sound. A brief profile
Consistent at every phase of his life
The composer Gustav Holst
Gustav Holst was a modest man who accepted success rather than striving for it. Yet he refused to compromise when it came to implementing his artistic ideals.
Schoenberg focus
Concerts, backgrounds, stories
Few have had such an influence on the course of music history as Arnold Schoenberg. However, reducing him solely to the role of innovator does not do justice to his fascinatingly diverse oeuvre. On the occasion of Schoenberg’s 150th birthday, a focus over two seasons provides an opportunity to rediscover the composer.
Biografien
Daniel Harding
Daniel Harding has been chief conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra since 2007 – an impressively long partnership. “It’s very satisfying to build something up slowly,” he says. Since autumn 2024, the English conductor has also been conductor of the orchestra and choir of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome. He also works with top international orchestras such as the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Concertgebouw Orchestra and leading orchestras in the USA.
Harding attracted attention early in his career as assistant to Sir Simon Rattle with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. This was followed by an assistantship with Claudio Abbado and the Berliner Philharmoniker, where Harding conducted for the first time in 1996. In the same year, he made his debut at the BBC Proms in London – as the youngest conductor in the history of the festival. By the age of 30, Harding had conducted every major orchestra in the world. In 2011, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra appointed him Honorary Conductor for Life. He was Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris from 2016 to 2019 and Principal Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra from 2007 to 2017. But Daniel Harding has another passion: he has worked as a commercial pilot since 2018. For him, making music and flying complement each other: “I wanted to find something that would challenge other areas of my brain.”
Rundfunkchor Berlin
Brilliant, flexible, transparent, versatile, precise – critics have used all these words to describe the sound of the Rundfunkchor Berlin. ”There is probably no other choir that does so many different things so well and that can deal with such a broad repertoire and such different formats,” says Gijs Leenaars, Chief Conductor and Artistic Director since the 2015/16 season. The programmes range from large-scale choral symphonies and a cappella concerts to interdisciplinary projects that break up the classical concert format and allow choral music to be experienced in a new way. In “sing-along concerts”, he repeatedly invites enthusiastic amateurs to make music together.
Not least because of its outstanding ability and versatility the Rundfunkchor Berlin, founded in 1925, frequently performs as a partner of major orchestras and conductors. The Rundfunkchor Berlin has performed regularly with the Berliner Philharmoniker since the early 1990s, and has taken part in performances of Antonín Dvořák’s Stabat mater, Giuseppe Verdi’s Messa da Requiem, Berlioz’s Romeo and Juliet and György Ligeti’s Requiem. Joint staging projects include widely-acclaimed performances of Bach’s St Matthew Passion and St John Passion with Sir Simon Rattle and director Peter Sellars. The collaboration continues under chief conductor Kirill Petrenko, for example in Felix Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah, Arnold Schoenberg’s oratorio The Jacob’s Ladder and Richard Strauss’ Elektra.
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