1. Philharmonic chamber music: The fascination of the clarinet

Platform: Berlin Phil Digital Concert Hall

Date of broadcast: November 24, 2024

Link: https://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en/concert/55708

The music world owes a great debt of gratitude to clarinettist Anton Stadler. After all, he inspired Mozart to write a clarinet quintet that is one of the most beautiful pieces of chamber music ever. Wolfgang Rihm, this season’s Composer in Residence, wrote his Vier Studien zu einem Klarinettenquintett for the clarinettist and composer Jörg Widmann. According to Widmann, Rihm “understands and senses the essence of our marvellous instrument like very few others”.

2. Simone Young conducts Bruckner and Rihm

Platform: Berlin Phil Digital Concert Hall

Date of broadcast: Sunday, December 8, 2024 at 2:00 AM

Link: https://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en/concert/55635

Simone Young prefers to conduct Anton Bruckner’s symphonies in their original versions: “Perhaps these are not as perfect as the later ones. But they have a modernity that the later ones lack.” Here she combines the original version of the Second Symphony with Wolfgang Rihm’s nocturnal scene Das Gehege. This sombre one-person piece is about a woman who, on the eve of German reunification, frees an eagle from its captivity, tries to seduce it, and ultimately kills it.

3. Andris Nelsons with Bruckner’s Eighth

Platform: Berlin Phil Digital Concert Hall

Date of broadcast: Sunday, December 15, 2024 at 2:00 AM

Link: https://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en/concert/55636

For Andris Nelsons, Bruckner’s Eighth is a work with a unique aura: “Bruckner penetrated here into regions that were beyond the reach of other composers.” Accordingly, performing the symphony is “an existential experience” for him. This can be heard in Nelsons’s interpretation: the swelling and breaking of musical arcs develops a sonic maelstrom that is almost impossible to resist.

4. Herbert Blomstedt and Leif Ove Andsnes

Platform: Berlin Phil Digital Concert Hall

Date of broadcast: Sunday, December 22, 2024 at 2:00 AM

Link: https://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en/concert/55637

Herbert Blomstedt sees Anton Bruckner as “the greatest symphonist since Beethoven”. The conductor is recognised worldwide as an authority on this repertoire – thanks to his unerring feel for Bruckner’s darkly glowing tonal language. Herbert Blomstedt now conducts the composer’s last symphony. This is preceded by Leif Ove Andsnes as the soloist in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20, a work of atmospheric shadows and uncompromising drama.

5. Puccini's Tosca

Platform: Medici.tv

Date of broadcast: Sunday, December 1, 2024 at 3:00 AM

Link: https://edu.medici.tv/en/operas/tosca-puccini-sonya-yoncheva-arena-di-verona

In 1889, Puccini attended a play—written by Victorien Sardou and performed by the great Sarah Bernhardt—whose main character exuded theatricality. He bought the rights to this passionate drama, and after a few years' work and two operas—Manon Lescaut (1893) and La Bohème (1896)—it was Tosca's turn to be revealed to the general public. Although the work was not an immediate success, it is now widely recognized as one of opera's finest masterpieces. Sung for over a century by the greatest voices, witness Sonya Yoncheva take on the mythical role of Sarah Bernhardt, accompanied by the talented Vittorio Grigòlo and Roman Burdenko—in a superb staging at the Arena in Verona, staged by Hugo de Ana!