It’s that time of the year again when the Prinsengracht canal is glutted with boats, and crowds gather along the quay with their picnic baskets and rosé wine. Everyone enjoys the music performed at the traditional Prinsengracht Concert. Adding even more sparkle to its 125th anniversary celebrations, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra is the main attraction at this popular open-air event for the first time. Teaming up with the orchestra is the Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja, who enraptures audiences with a number of well-loved arias, including the celebrated ‘Nessun dorma’ from Puccini’s Turandot. The orchestra is also performing Tchaikovsky’s always spectacular 1812 Overture. —– PROGRAM: Verdi: Overture to La forza del destino – Massenet: Werther / Pourquoi me réveiller – Puccini: Tosca / E lucevan le stelle – Manon Lescaut / Intermezzo (Act III) – Verdi: Rigoletto / La donna è mobile – Puccini: Turandot / Nessun dorma – Agustin Lara: Granada (arr. Steven Mercurio) – Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture (‘Solennelle’) – Pieter Goemans: Aan de Amsterdamse Grachten (encore) (Cat. No. UNITEL A865500130000)
The Odeonsplatz Concert 2023 – Lang Lang & Orozco-Estrada
Classical music in a unique atmosphere, with top-class ensembles, conductors and soloists on one of the most magnificent squares in Europe are the ingredients for the success story of “Klassik am Odeonsplatz”. Since its founding in 2000, the open-air has become a firmly established highlight of Munich’s cultural life, attracting 16,000 music fans every year. This edition features piano superstar Lang Lang and charismatic Colombian conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada. Their can’t-miss program is made up exclusively of high Romantic classics, from Wagner’s famous Tannhäuser Overture and Grieg’s Piano Concerto to Richard Strauss’s exquisite tone poem Don Juan and, finally, Tchaikovsky’s sweeping Romeo and Juliet, whose rapturous main theme instantly calls to mind the greatest love stories ever told. An evening to revel in, to dream about and to thrill. “Everything is just right. A fabulous open-air feast.” (Münchner Merkur) “You can’t wish for more, you can’t do better.” (Abendzeitung)
The Odeonsplatz Concert: Harding & Kavakos
“Kavakos plays Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto with a Kavakos-like supremacy making every trill flash and carving out every piece of scale with iron precision. […] It’s all about conciseness, about attitude, a kind of highly energetic music-making that knows no limits of expression.” (Süddeutsche Zeitung) “Klassik am Odeonsplatz” is a summer highlight in the musical life of the Bavarian capital. This concert from the 2022 edition features famous masterpieces as Dvorák “New World” Symphony and the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto played by Leonidas Kavakos together with Daniel Harding on the podium of the Münchner Philharmoniker. PROGRAM: Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto; Dvorák: Symphony No. 9; Johann Strauss: Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka
Festive Advent Concert at the Frauenkirche Dresden 2021
The Festive Advent Concert has become a much loved tradition in Dresden and one of German TV’s biggest classical music success stories. In 2021, conductor Petr Popelka, the Staatskapelle Dresden and the Staatsopernchor join forces with soprano Katharina Konradi, tenor Jonathan Tetelman and organist Samuel Kummer to present a programme ranging from Bach to festive arias and works of Tchaikovsky, Saint-Saëns, Handel, Grieg, Humperdinck and Lili Boulanger.
The Odeonsplatz Concert: Gilbert & Fleming
Nestled in the historic city centre of Munich, the Odeonsplatz provides the perfect venue for one of the open-air highlights of the year: “Klassik am Odeonsplatz”! This time one of the greatest opera stars of our days, soprano Renée Fleming is joining the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under Alan Gilbert’s baton. PROGRAM Songs by Tchaikovsky, Korngold, Bernstein, von Flotow; Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.5
The Odeonsplatz Concert: Gergiev & Florez
Munich’s Odeonsplatz Concert is one of the open-air highlights of the year. The magnificent Residenz Palace on one side and the serene, towering Theatinerkirche on the other provide the ideal backdrop for exceptional performances of classical music. In this setting, Juan Diego Flórez presents an impressive aria programme, for which “he is celebrated like a popstar” (Süddeutsche Zeitung) by the Munich public. The Münchner Philharmoniker shine with their maestro Valery Gergiev at the helm. Arias by Mozart, Donizetti, Massenet, Puccini, Verdi; Rimskij-Korsakow: Scheherazade
Thielemann conducts Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Liszt
Lisa Batiashvili, Gautier Capuçon, Christian Thielemann and the Staatskapelle Dresden present a sophisticated programme about love and death from the perspective of three 19th century composers: The stages of life can be viewed as preludes to the melody of death, as Liszt proposed in Les Préludes. It is only at the very end that the inadequacies of life are resolved – the tragedy behind the love of Romeo and Juliet in Tchaikovsky’s Fantasy Overture. In the jaws of death, Eros enjoys his strongest impulse, one that transcends time. What results is the desire for the epic and heroic, which in Brahms’ final orchestral work, the Double Concerto, achieves a certain consummation. The Double Concerto forms part of Thielemann’s extensive Brahms cycle, containing symphonies and solo concertos performed to frenetic acclaim in Dresden and Tokyo.
Festive Advent Concert at the Frauenkirche Dresden 2013
Program: Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Paulus: Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Exsultate, jubilate / Tu virginum corona / Alleluia; Camille Saint-Saëns, Oratorio de Noël: Domine, ego credidi / Tollite hostias; Pietro Mascagni, Ave Maria; Max Reger, Unser lieben Frauen Traum; Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, The Nutcracker: Decorating the Christmas Tree / A Pine Forest in Winter; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Great Mass in C minor: Domine Deus / Cum sancto spiritu; Giacomo Puccini, Salve Regina; Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Elias: Denn er hat seinen Engeln befohlen; Adolphe Adam, Cantique de Noël / Macht hoch die Tür
Daniel Barenboim – 70th Birthday Concert
Performing the solo parts of two of the great piano concertos in the concert repertoire – BEETHOVEN’s Piano Concerto no. 3 and TCHAIKOVSKY’s Piano Concerto no. 1 – in one sitting is a feat that few pianists can pull off apart from Daniel Barenboim. Pianist, conductor and chamber musician extraordinaire, Daniel Barenboim hands over the reins of “his” orchestra, the Staatskapelle Berlin, to his close friend and colleague Zubin Mehta. To honor his friend the composer Elliott CARTER, who passed away at the age of 103, Barenboim performs a work written especially for him by Carter. —– Program: BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 3; ELIOTT CARTER: Dialogues II for piano and orchestra; TCHAIKOVSKY: Piano Concerto No. 1
Stars of Tomorrow presented by Rolando Villazón – Episode 24
With unparalleled charm and whirlwind exuberance, world-renowned tenor Rolando Villazón hosts a unique television special in which young musical “stars of tomorrow” are introduced to millions of music lovers as soloists in performances with the Junge Sinfonie Berlin under the baton of Giedre Slekyte und Elias Grandy – a highly successful, casual, briskly paced concert series that appeals to young audiences!