Leonard Bernstein’s historical concert in celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 has long become almost as legendary as the revolutionary moment that it celebrated. Recorded at the beautiful Schauspielhaus right on Gendarmenmarkt in the…

For twenty years the Berliner Philharmoniker has celebrated its 1882 founding with a concert at a major European venue, and the 2011 event takes place at the magnificent Teatro Real in Madrid. The renowned orchestra, under the baton of Sir Simon…

The re-release in Blu-ray Disc will be available from May 2013. “Together with conductor Claudio Abbado, the cream of young European musicians who make up this outstanding orchestra infused the symphony with a luminosity that glowed with an inner…

On the tenth anniversary of the European Concerts – held annually since 1991 to commemorate the day on which the orchestra was founded – Mariss Jansons and the Berliner Philharmoniker in Istanbul are received with rapturous ovation. Berlioz’s…

A true celebration, ushering in the New Year with one of the finest orchestras and greatest conductors in the world. The 2007 Gala from Berlin features the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle in Alexander Borodin’s Second Symphony, a richly…

A rehearsal under the Austrian conductor Karl Böhm (1894-1981) was a prospect that prompted distinctly mixed feelings among orchestral musicians in Vienna, Berlin, Bayreuth and New York. He was an uncompromising, expert orchestral trainer and an…

In November 2004 a new name caused listeners to prick up their ears on the international orchestral scene: under Claudio Abbado’s artistic guidance the Orchestra Mozart came into being. It combines both young instrumentalists on the threshold of a…

Surely Bach’s French Suites, which he composed during his years at Cöthen (1717–1723), are among the finest inducements to practise that any teacher has ever made to a pupil. In this case Bach wrote them for his young wife, Anna Magdalena. The over…

In 2011 the Berliner Philharmoniker and their musical director Sir Simon Rattle welcomed in the New Year with a gala concert entitled ‘Dances & Dreams’. Spinetingling and inspiring performances of music by Dvorˇák, Ravel, Richard Strauss, Stravinsky…

A “triumph of remembrance,” wrote Die Welt following this stirring concert given by the Berliner Philharmoniker under Seiji Ozawa and with Anne-Sophie Mutter as soloist. It left its audience hovering between hushed reverence and deafening exultation…