Simon Rattle conducts Sibelius

For the recent major London residency of the Berliner Philharmoniker at the Barbican Sir Simon Rattle has chosen music that means most to him, the complete cycle of Sibelius symphonies in honour of the 150th anniversary of the composer’s birth: “Sibelius is so concentrated and exact. With Sibelius you feel that if one drop touches your skin it would burn right through the bone.“ “High-voltage Sibelius kicks off Rattle’s London Residency” raved the press consequently over the opening of the cycle. The Telegraph agreed: “Sibelius’s symphonies sounded thrillingly new in the hands of Simon Rattle and the Berlin Phil”, in a way, that “a great orchestra and conductor can make familiar music seem the hottest thing in town”.

West-Eastern Divan Orchestra at the Proms

The orchestra’s London appearance, as part of the 120th anniversary Proms season, marked a significant date for Barenboim himself: he was celebrating 65 years (less a day) since making his debut in his native Buenos Aires. His programme cleverly contrasts the anti-Romantic terseness and crystalline beauty of Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony – “a taut, rhythmic performance with a fine sense of dramatic momentum” (Evening Standard) – with the tempestuous emotionalism of Tchaikovsky’s opus, where “the orchestra rose to all technical challenges in an interpretation of overwhelming energy and power” (The Guardian), while Beethoven’s Triple Concerto could almost serve as a paradigm for the orchestra’s egalitarian ethos where Barenboim and his partners “offered urbane poise, ideally suited to this relaxed, airily melodic work” (The Telegraph). PROGRAM Schoenberg: Chamber Symphony; Beethoven: Triple concerto; Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4

BBC Proms 2016 – Gergiev, Abduraimov and Munich Philharmonic Orchestra

Valery Gergiev and his Munich Philharmonic Orchestra open with Ravel’s hypnotic Boléro and close with a suite from Richard Strauss’s waltz-filled opera Der Rosenkavalier. In between, Galina Ustvolskaya’s Symphony No. 3 pleads for redemption on raw brass and winds. Composed in 1983 it is based on the texts of the 11th-century German monk and musician Hermanus Contractus and includes solo recitatives performed by Alexei Petrenko. Young Uzbek pianist Behzod Abduraimov is the soloist in Rachmaninov’s soaring Piano Concerto No. 3. “Abduraimov ist phenomenal!“ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). “He should be on any must-hear list.” (The New York Times).

BBC Proms 2016: WEDO and Barenboim perform Widmann, Liszt, Wagner

Proms don’t come more stellar than this!”, raved The Independent about the WEDO’s performance at the BBC Proms. The concert opens with a rendition of Jörg Widmann’s overture Con brio. Martha Argerich continues with an “unforgettable performance” of Franz Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1, dazzling with her “frighteningly precise” playing (The Guardian). As encore the two childhood friends join forces at the piano for a four handed rendition of Schubert’s Rondo in A “that for 12 minutes provides a glimpse of paradise” (The Standart) holding “6000 people spellbound” (The Times). Further repertoire includes Wagner’s Overtures to Tannhäuser and Meistersinger; Dawn, Siegfried’s Rhine Journey and Funeral March from Götterdämmerung et al.

BBC Proms 2016: Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla conducts Mozart & Tchaikovsky

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra presents its new Music Director Mirga Gražinyte-Tyla at the BBC Proms. Gražinyte-Tyla is not only the successor of Sir Simon Rattle and Andris Nelsons at the CBSO, but also the first female conductor to take over one of the world’s leading orchestras. Her talent and musicality shine bright in the concert’s centre piece, the “spellbinding and bewitching” (The Guardian) song cycle Let me tell you by Hans Abrahamsen, performed by no less than Barbara Hannigan, for whom the piece was written in the first place. In the second half of the concert, Gražinyte-Tyla and the CBSO explore Tchaikovsky’s dramatic Fourth Symphony – “technically impeccable and just that bit more vivid than usual” (The Guardian). PROGRAM: Mozart: Overture Die Zauberflöte; Abrahamsen: Let me tell you; Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4

BBC Proms 2016: Simon Rattle conducts Mahler 7

For the opening of his last season as chief conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker, Sir Simon Rattle chose Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 7. Following the performance at the Philharmonie in Berlin, Rattle took his orchestra to London, to present Mahler’s mighty work to his new concert audience from next year on. Indeed it was Mahler’s music that initially led Rattle to the idea of pursuing a career on the podium. And it was an interpretation of Mahler’s 7th that made a significant contribution to the Berliner Philharmoniker selecting the maestro as their chief conductor. “The Berliner Philharmoniker led off in ravishing brass colours that punched the air with exalted penetration before softening to an equally glorious restraint. Thereafter, with dynamics that turned on a sixpence the symphony held together as persuasively as I’ve heard it” (Bachtrack). PROGRAM: Boulez: Éclat, Mahler: Symphony No 7 in E minor

World Orchestra for Peace at the BBC Proms

The 150th anniversary of the birth of Gustav Mahler in 2010 gave rise to a number of celebratory performances of his works. For its program at the fabled London BBC Proms in August 2010, the World Orchestra for Peace under Valery Gergiev chose the master’s Fourth and Fifth Symphonies. In the words of London’s The Independent, ‘the World Orchestra for Peace gave exemplary performances’ of the Mahler symphonies. The demanding soprano solo part in the Fourth is impressively sung by Camilla Tilling. At the opening of the Fifth, the Mariinsky Theater’s trumpeter Timur Martynov provides a lustrous, golden fanfare. ‘A rapt Valery Gergiev […] sculpted the closing Adagietto like a sacred object of veneration.’

L.v.Beethoven: The Complete Symphonies

As a musical highlight during the Summer Olympics 2012 in London, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra under the baton of Daniel Barenboim performed all nine symphonies by Ludwig van Beethoven during the famous BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall. Also available: DOCUMENTARY “Barenboim on Beethoven: Nine Symphonies that changed the World”. A film by Michael Waldman; Cat. No. A02007374 // SYMPHONIES Lengths: No. 1 = 29′ / No. 2 = 35′ / No. 3 = 53′ / No. 4 = 39′ / No. 5 = 35′ / No. 6 = 44′ / No. 7 = 39′ / No. 8 = 30′ / No. 9 = 78′

BBC Proms 2017: Rattle conducts Schönberg’s Gurre Lieder

Sir Simon Rattle starts his tenure as the London Symphony Orchestra’s new Music Director with a concert at the prestigious BBC Proms – 40 years after his first appearance with the LSO, in October 1977 at the age of 22. The Royal Albert Hall’s cavernous space provides the perfect surroundings for this supersize scale performance of Arnold Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder. The force of over five hundred voices from the London Symphony Chorus, the CBSO Chorus, and Orfeó Català meet the LSO and a superb lineup of soloists, led by Rattle, putting on “a brilliantly blazing show” (The Daily Telegraph). Their BBC Proms performance is “an intoxicating embrace of the gigantic ebb and flow of Schoenberg’s score … an ecstatic celebration!” (The Guardian)