Intermezzo

Berlin Philharmonic want your money and they want it now

Thought about what you're doing in 15 months time yet? Tickets for the Berlin Philharmonic's February 2011 London visit went on sale today.

The Berliner's four-night residency takes in both the Barbican and Southbank, and members of either can buy tickets now. Non-members will have to wait until 14 December.

Although the concerts are unlikely to sell out immediately, most tickets are at the spendy end of the scale (up to £75), and already the limited 'cheap' (£15) seats are thin on the ground - so early booking is advisable for these.

More details and ticket sales link here.

future of Salzburg Easter Festival in doubt

The rumours have been flying around for weeks. Now the impeccably well-informed music critic of Die Welt Manuel Brug confirms that whatever official denials may be issued,

the Berlin Philharmonic are pulling out of the Salzburg Easter Festival from 2012.

The Berlin Philharmonic are the only orchestra featured in the festival, which is run independently from the summer event based around the Vienna Philharmonic. Grumblings about the level of subsidy and a lucrative competing offer from Festspielhaus Baden-Baden are believed to feature in the decision. Eagle eyes may have already noticed that the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, which in the last few years has shared the Easter Festival opera production, is not doing so in 2010.

The incoming summer festival boss, Alexander Pereira, had suggested incorporating the Easter Festival opera into the summer schedule, thus presumably spreading the costs. But Brug claims this offer has little appeal compared with the lucrative private engagements available to the Berliners in the summer months. The start of the Philharmonie season at the end of August also limits their availability.

A significant part of the Easter Festival's attraction has always been the rare opportunity to hear the Berliners in the opera pit. It remains to be seen whether it would be viable to continue with an alternative orchestra in place.

Gustavo Dudamel drives Berlin Philharmonic to the edge

Berliner Philharmoniker / Dudamel / Viktoria Mullova - Philharmonie Berlin, 7 March 2009

Arnold Böcklin - Die Toteninsel

Rachmaninov Isle of the Dead; Stravinsky Violin Concerto; Prokofiev Symphony No. 5

Gustavo Dudamel has moved way, way beyond playing samba with kids, even if British press reviews don't always reflect this. Even if his abilities didn't always match his ambitions, this all-Russian programme proved that he deserved to be handed the keys to the Aston Martin of orchestras, the Berlin Philharmonic.

Relentlessly rolling rhythm and the growling basses of the Berlin Phil married in a dark and brooding reading of Rachmaninov's Isle of the Dead (inspired by the painting above). The moments of repose were too few and too restless to provide the necessary structural contrast, but this journey can rarely  have been made with such propulsive urgency.

Dudamel remained at sea in a different sense with Stravinsky's Violin Concerto. It was the only time he used a score all night - a misbehaving mini-version that wouldn't lie flat. There was little to suggest he'd seen the work before ever in his life (despite having played it here the two previous nights). He seemed reluctant to impose anything beyond a tempo on its spare classical lines.

And there was no sense of collaboration or interplay with the soloist, Viktoria Mullova. She seemed even more buried in the score than he did, and it was hard to escape the impression she was sight-reading. Like many in the audience, not to mention several members of the orchestra, I diverted my attention to the fascinating flexion of the impressive Madonna-muscled arms and back revealed by her airy origami-parachute frock.

But Dudamel redeemed himself and then some with his storming Prokofiev. And this time, no score. Pinpoint-precise playing anchored the outrageous exuberance. He may have sidelined some of the work's inherent complexity and contradictions, but you couldn't wish for a more confident and vibrant reading. The orchestra played out of their skins for him and rose as one the second it was over. Those who complain that Dudamel doesn't shape work as a whole have a point of sorts, but they're missing another one. Dudamel at his best lives and plays absolutely in the moment - and it's an intense and exhilirating ride, if you're open to it.

Dudamel is called back for about his 10th bow (no kidding) - orchestra have already gone home:

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flip over for more photos............

Berlin Philharmonic take a stand

Here's something I hadn't noticed before. Check out those three words tucked away at the bottom right hand corner of every page on the Berlin Philharmonic's web site.

It's a direct link to Netz gegen Nazis - Net against Nazis - an online project aimed at combating right-wing extremism. Initiated by die Zeit newspaper and supported by various partners in Germany including football organisations and TV channels, it offers advice on keeping the extremists' views out of everyday life - 'not to agitate but to inform'.

It's still some distance from Barenboim-style direct engagement with the issues of the day. But at least the Berlin Phil are leading the way for other orchestras to consider using their website for something more important than tickets and t-shirts.

L’Enfant et le Berlin Phil

Berliner Philharmoniker/Rattle - Philharmonie Berlin, 26 September 2008

The Berlin Philharmonic rarely sound like the world's greatest orchestra in the boomy Royal Albert Hall or the desiccated Barbican, but on their home patch, in the acoustically-engineered architecture of the Philharmonie, it's a different matter. Its strange angles seem to pinpoint every note. The precision tapestries of Ravel's Ma Mère l’oye and L’Enfant et les sortilèges< came alive.

Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic were performing the same double bill 

for three nights in a row (beneath a mic-draped ceiling, suggesting a recording is in the offing). It made for a short evening - 30 minutes one end, 45 the other - but like one of those incredibly dense, incredibly rich chocolate cakes, a little went a long way.  

Ma Mère l’oye balanced complexity with weightlessness. Only the surprise volume of the sudden fortissimo a few bars from the end made me realise how quietly the rest had been played, and how subtly Rattle had delineated the crisp changes of texture. Like a series of dressage manoeuvres, it's partly a showcase for solo skills, and all were faultlessly handled.  

I recall Simon Rattle, as he left England to take up the Berlin job, criticising modern British artists for being 'biographical'. Well, no composer could be less biographical than Ravel, so perhaps it was predictable that Rattle seemed in his element. He didn't search dig or embellish, simply presented it in crystal clear focus. A masterpiece of charm, taste and workmanship.

L’Enfant et les sortilèges is a difficult one. It doesn't get many fully-staged outings on account of its odd length and the physical demands of its fantasy storyline. In some ways it's more like a cartoon script than a theatrical text. But the same demands would make a totally straight concert performance confusing and inadequate. The choice here, a concert performance with indicative costume and movement, seemed a reasonable compromise, and the singers had enormous fun with it.

Magdalena Kožená made a wonderfully brattish, exasperating Child, even if the Pudelkopf did her no favours. The other singers threw themselves into their multiple roles with great gusto, tiptoeing round Simon Rattle's podium for a bit of physical interaction where required. The miaow duet of Sophie Koch and François Le Roux was the go-for-broke highlight, but the flowing coloratura of Annick Massis as Princess and Nightingale, and Nathalie Stutzmann's carefully variegated Mother, Teacup and Dragonfly enriched the mix too.

Rattle kept the orchestra unassertive, but there was no loss of intensity or commitment, and it was clear they were thoroughly enjoying themselves.

The subject-matter and its glib treatment may suggest both pieces are 'children's music' (and I did love Andre Previn's classic LSO recording all those years ago) but there's enough wit, invention and plain old craftsmanship there to draw in the most demanding adult too. I can't say I was spiritually uplifted, but I was at least cheered up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Magdalena Kozena turns into Simon Rattle

Yes, it really is her. And I don't think it's a wig either. Just mad tonging skillz and Elnett. Magdalena chose tonight's performance of L’Enfant et les sortilèges by Sir Simon and his Berliner Philharmoniker to unveil this 'interesting' tribute 'do.

 

Sir Simon, meanwhile, found another dame to channel:

Berliner Philharmoniker - beautiful isn't always best

Proms 64 and 65: Berliner Philharmoniker / Simon Rattle - Royal Albert Hall, 2 and 3 September 2008

Wagner Tristan und Isolde - Prelude and Liebestod, Messiaen Turangalîla Symphony

Brahms Symphony No.3, Shostakovich Symphony No.10

If you've ever seen photos of Simon Rattle in action, you might assume he just stands there with his gob gated open all night, like an angler fish on the ocean bed. In reality, he talks non-stop, or at least mouths. I wish I could lip read. I'm pretty sure I caught a couple of "help me"s but the rest is a mystery.

I was able to study the Rattle platform manner at close hand on Tuesday night from my surprisingly pricy (£23) seat in the choir stalls, tucked behind the Berlin Philharmonic's gleaming tubular bells and pleasingly close to the Berlin motor itself, the tigerish growl of the basses.

Of course a lot of water can be lost through an open mouth. That's why marathon runners keep theirs shut, and overheated doggies don't.

No wonder Sir Simon needed a mini-break halfway through the hour-plus Turangalîla Symphony to chug back some water behind the piano, coaxing the obliging violas into a bit of quite unnecessary 'retuning' to cover.

It was a wonderfully lucid account of this lengthy and problematical, inherently episodic work. If talent borrows and genius steals, then Messiaen could be a musical Einstein. Rattle drew out the direct quotations from Wagner's Tristan more clearly than I've ever heard before - and of course it did no harm to hear the wellspring itself, exquisitely presented, at the start of the evening.

Messiaen's anointed, Pierre-Laurent Aimard at the piano and Tristan Murail at the ondes Martenot, brought a special authority. Where the work could have tipped over into Gershwin-pastiche vulgarity, Rattle wisely settled on festive exuberance.  

There was a more honed predictability about the second concert. Despite the near-perfection of the orchestra's playing - or perhaps because of it - Rattle seemed content to lay back and bathe in the immaculately polished sound.  While there's nothing wrong with loveliness for its own sake, I find this orchestra at their best when they're nearer the edges of their comfort zone, as they were with the previous night's Messiaen.