Berliner Philharmoniker 
Backstage-Storys

Princess or wallflower?

In the 1920s, Germaine Tailleferre stirred up the musical life of France as a member of the composers’ collective “Les Six”, yet she still fell into neglect. Here is a portrait of her turbulent life.

The Misfit

Anton Bruckner was always an outsider in Vienna’s polite society. Who was this “mifit” and what motivated him? In search of the evidence.

Reposing by a Lake, Riding a Camel in the Desert

Where and How Composers Went on Holiday? The simple answer: not at all. Because when they went travelling, they always took the score or at least a sketchbook with them. There was plenty of inspiration.

I’d like to take people with me on a journey

Composer and conductor Peter Eötvös died in March of this year at the age of eighty. When the Berliner Philharmoniker give the German premiere of his piano concerto “Cziffra Psodia” this September, the orchestra pays homage to a passionate musician who was a close associate for decades.

The intimate strangers

Bruckner and Mahler were titans. Both men were symphonists whose works were unprecedented in their length. They had neither predecessors nor successors. They were close and simultaneously distant. A closer look at the lives of these two disparate symphonists.

Fanning the flames

Today, concerts featuring Bruckner’s symphonies are among the Berliner Philharmoniker’s seasonal highlights, but this was not always the case. On the Bruckner tradition of the Berliner Philharmoniker.

The Springtime of Love

For Robert Schumann, the early years of his marriage to Clara Wieck were a time of happiness and exuberant creativity. Some of his finest works date from this period.

Kotowa Machida: If I were not a musician

In this section we introduce members of the Berliner Philharmoniker and their extramusical passions. Today: Violinist Kotowa Machida, for whom cooking is pure relaxation.

Maurice Ravel’s “Boléro”: 7 facts about the world-famous work

A masterpiece, “unfortunately without music” was Ravel’s own judgement of his work. Discover 7 entertaining facts about the piece.

A short piano lexicon

Prélude, nocturne, sonata and étude – in our short piano lexicon, we introduce you to the major genres of piano music one at a time.

Johannes Brahms and Joseph Joachim

Without the violinist Joseph Joachim, Brahms would probably never have written his Violin Concerto. The work is the result and the expression of a long-standing friendship.

Paradox on the Podium

Conductor Eun Sun Kim makes her debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker.

Franz Schubert: Music like an Infinity Symbol

His music can suspend all sense of time, as if, while exploring the streets of a large city, you gradually lose yourself in the moment.

The sound of crime and retribution

It always be considered Richard Strauss’ most modern work. He set the most intense and most complex emotions to music - revenge, guilt, madness, painful memories and the struggle for what is just.

Ludwig van Beethoven the pianist

Ludwig van Beethoven was a piano prodigy; he enjoyed the greatest successes of his early career as a pianist. However, as his hearing deteriorated, this changed.

Gustav and Alma Mahler

Should she really accept his offer of marriage? At twenty-two, Alma was an extraordinarily beautiful and charismatic woman. Mahler was a social climber from the provinces.

Jonathan Kelly: If I were not a musician ...

In this section, we introduce members of the Berliner Philharmoniker and their extramusical passions. Today: Jonathan Kelly has a green thumb.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and the Berliner Philharmoniker

Art is sometimes a step ahead of politics. On 8 February 1888, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky stood at the podium of the Berliner Philharmoniker as the conductor of his own works.

Arnold Schoenberg in exile

In the 1940s, composers, writers, visual artists and other intellectuals who had fled the Nazis gathered in Los Angeles.

Brightening up sleepless nights

The mysteries of the “Goldberg Variations”

Verdi’s Messa da Requiem

Fear of death and the end of the world in Italian. Verdi's Messa da Requiem is a showdown between art and the church.

Schoenberg’s Slap-in-the-Face Concert

A memorable Schoenberg performance in 1913

Between morbidity and life force

The fin de siècle

The storm in music

Especially with thunder and lightning, composers can impressively let their creativity and feeling for striking sound effects run free.

If I were not a musician ...

Double bass player Matthew McDonald loves poetry – and not only in music.

The composer Marianna Martines

Composing child prodigy, harpsichord virtuoso and singer: in 17th century Vienna, her domestic academies were musical hotspots.

In celebration of Hans Scharoun

A declaration of love to his most famous building: the Philharmonie Berlin.

Mysterious symphonies

Mozart’s Symphonies Nos. 39 to 41 are regarded as the pinnacle of his instrumental oeuvre - and are at the same time shrouded in mystery.

Who was Beethoven’s “Immortal Beloved”?

Beethoven dedicated the first print of his Seventh Symphony to Antonie Brentano. Was she perhaps his “Immortal Beloved”? To this day, the mystery has not been completely resolved.

Yearningly successful

His two-and-a-half-year stay in America was an ambivalent time for Antonín Dvořák – characterized by triumphs, enthusiasm about new impressions, but also yearning for his Bohemian homeland.