Filmed in Tokyo’s legendary Suntory Hall in April 2026, Lahav Shani and the Munich Philharmonic are joined by the brilliant Seong-Jin Cho in a programme focusing on two groundbreaking firsts: Beethoven’s exuberant, expansive First Piano Concerto and Mahler’s vividly pictorial First Symphony – a work that redefined what the symphony could be as the 19th century approached its end. With Mozart’s Overture to Die Entführung aus dem Serail as an arresting curtain-raiser, this concert presents more than a century of music central to the Austro-German tradition, performed at the very highest level. PROGRAMME: Mozart – Overture to Die Entführung aus dem Serail K.384; Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C major, Op. 15; Mahler: Symphony No. 1 in D major “Titan”
Martha Argerich & Lahav Shani at Aix-en-Provence Spring Festival
Martha Argerich and Lahav Shani have shared the stage many times in recent years, as Shani often invites the Argentinian piano legend to play with the various ensembles he directs. Shani is indeed a multitalented artist as he began performing as a double bass player and soon became a piano soloist before eventually becoming a conductor with support from Daniel Barenboim, one of Martha Argerich’s closest friends. Shani leads his “new” orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic, this year’s resident orchestra. After performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 last year, Martha Argerich turns her attentions to his Piano Concerto No. 2, a piece she loves just as much.
Salzburg Festival Concert Box
A Box Set releasing 6 Concerts from the Salzburg Festival recorded between 2007 and 2013, featuring the Wiener Philharmoniker, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, the National Children´s Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela under the batons of Pierre Boulez, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Daniel Barenboim and Sir Simon Rattle.
Vaclav Neumann conducts Mahler & Dvorak
There’s always something inspiring about a veteran conductor working with young musicians – a special energy that flows between youth and experience, to the enrichment of all. In 1990, as tyrannies crumbled across Central Europe the great Czech maestro Vacláv Neumann joined forces with the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester and the distinguished British baritone Thomas Allen for a programme of Mahler (his Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen) and Dvorák (his final symphony). The result – captured live at the Alte Oper Frankfurt – has a quite extraordinary sense of occasion, as Neumann imparts a lifetime’s emotion and experience to his audibly inspired young players.
Star-studded Anniversary: 125 Years of the Concertgebouw and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
Th e Concertgebouw was officially inaugurated on 11 April 1888. Public interest was so great that Amsterdam experienced its very first traffic jam (of carriages). Now, 125 years later, the RCO and the Concertgebouw are organising an anniversary concert together. Under the baton of its chief conductor Mariss Jansons, the orchestra is welcoming three popular guest soloists: Janine Jansen, Thomas Hampson and Lang Lang. This festive programme features Mahler and Strauss, both of whom conducted the orchestra on several occasions. Musicians from the RCO, the Vienna and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestras are joining forces for a performance of the Elégie from Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings. —— WAGNER: Prelude to ‘Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg’ // MAHLER: ‘Ging heut’ morgens über Feld’, ‘Rheinlegendchen’, ‘Lob des hohen Verstandes’ // PROKOFIEV: Piano concerto Nr 3 in C major, op. 26, 3rd movement // TCHAIKOVSKY: Serenade for strings: Élégie // SAINT-SAËNS: Introduction et Rondo capriccioso // R. STRAUSS: Suite from ‘Der Rosenkavalier’. (75′ / 90′ / 102′) (A865500020000)
Lahav Shani conducts the 80 Years of Liberation – May 8 Concert
On the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, known as Liberation Day in Germany, conductor Lahav Shani unites musicians from the Israel Philharmonic and the Münchner Philharmoniker for “a highly emotional performance” (Münchner Merkur) in the Isarphilharmonie. The two orchestras start their first ever collaboration with the deeply moving Prayer, a piece by 97-yearold Israeli composer Tzvi Avni, who travelled to Munich to witness this historic occasion. Then, the musicians come together to shape Mahler’s monumental Sixth Symphony. Shani’s Mahler is “robust, dark, rough, seeking depth” and manages to “achieve the ultimate in tragic expression here – horror and emotion give way to catharsis, to spiritual cleansing” (Süddeutsche Zeitung). PROGRAM: Avni: Prayer; Mahler: Symphony No. 6
Nelsons conducts Mahler & HK Gruber
Mahler’s Fifth is among the best loved of his symphonies; not least thanks to the Adagietto, made legendary as the soundtrack to Visconti’s Death in Venice. Andris Nelsons on the rostrum of the the Berliner Philharmoniker made this symphony into “a true celebration of beauty and the phenomenal Philharmonic string sound” wrote in Der Tagesspiegel delight. The concert got off to a racing start, too: the “master trumpeter” (Berliner Zeitung) Hakan Hardenberger carried the audience with him in HK Gruber’s trumpet concerto Aerial. After all his showpiece: the composer wrote this BBC Proms commission specially for him. “Hardenberger, the virtuoso supersonic, thrills his audience through and through.” (Berliner Morgenpost)
From War To Peace
This documentary celebrates 20 years of the World Orchestra for Peace (1995-2015 ), with excerpts from the 2014 UNESCO Concert for Peace at the BBC Proms, with works by Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss and Roxanna Panufnik, conducted by Valery Gergiev. Also featured are a rare archive of Georg Solti with Richard Strauss (1949), Solti’s 80th birthday concert at Buckingham Palace (1992) with additional contributions from Irina Bokova (UNESCO Director-General) and many leading players of the World Orchestra for Peace.
Daniel Harding conducts Purcell and Mahler
Daniel Harding and the BR Symphony Orchestra performing Henry Purcell’s stunning Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 6.
Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Gil Shaham in Concert
Sunday, the 29th of June, 2014, marks the 100th anniversary of Rafael Kubelík’s birth, Chief Conductor of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks from 1961 to 1979. Violinist Gil Shaham and conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin have dedicated this concerts to the memory of the great artist and human being, Rafael Kubelík, who has left an indelible mark on the orchestra for many years right to the present day. On the program Béla Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 2 and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 in D major “Titan”.