With starry Skies above…Perspectives into the Future…
Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Chennai in cooperation with
BERLIN PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA presents a
DIGITAL CONCERT HALL
Programme
Alban Berg Lulu Suite (33 min.)
Marlis Petersen soprano
Ludwig van Beethoven (72 min.)
Symphony No. 9 in D minor, op. 125 with Final Chorus
Ode to Joy
Marlis Petersen soprano, Elisabeth Kulman mezzo-soprano, Benjamin Bruns tenor, Kwangchul Youn bass, Rundfunkchor Berlin choir, Gijs Leenaars chorus master
Goethe-Institut invites the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra to its auditorium in a digital format with high definition video live-streaming for the connoisseurs of Western classical music of Chennai. The Digital Concert Hall with excellent sound and video is the best close-to-real experience one can get.
Finally the time has come! For the first time, Kirill Petrenko stands before the Berliner Philharmoniker as their new chief conductor. It is a spectacular seasons opening concert with Beethovens Ninth Symphony whose overwhelmingly joyful finale and Bergs Lulu-Suite are perfect for the festive occasion. The concert also presents Marlis Petersen in both as the Soprano.
For this inaugural concert, two of the greatest symphonic masterpieces of the 19th century was chosen:
Ludwig van Beethoven worked on his last symphony as long as Berg on his last work.
Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, a work in which almost out of nothing, the formidable musical tension Beethoven creates finds redemption and exaltation in the anthemic, visionary choral finale ‘Freude, schöner Götterfunken’. The symphony has great symbolic power with its closing chorus of Schiller’s ‘Ode to Joy’ which expresses the delight with which Petrenko and the Philharmoniker start off together. The Ninth also conveys an important message: a clear commitment to humanity, to the equality of all mankind.
In addition, the performance of the symphony is the first in a series of Beethoven concerts this season to mark the 250th anniversary of the composer’s birth in 2020. At the same time, it pays musical homage to previous chief conductors of the Berliner Philharmoniker:
The season opening concert also sees the first appearance by soprano Marlis Petersen as the 2019/20 Artist in Residence. Audiences saw her in Berlin in two contrasting works: the soprano solo in Beethoven’s Ninth and the vocal part in Alban Berg’s Symphonic Pieces from the opera Lulu.
Alban Berg’s Symphonic Pieces from the
Opera Lulu contain three excerpts from the second act as well as two passages from the third. Berg had completed the basic framework of the opera when blood poisoning ended his life. All that remained was the orchestration of the third act and a selection of excerpts from that, which could be performed in the concert, was witnessed. The closing Lulu’s Song results in a fascinating dissociation, a separation of the performer and the character depicted: the singer turns out to be not the personification of Lulu, but the commentator of her fate.
This digital concert is presented as a special celebration to commemorate the 30th Anniversary of The Fall of The Berlin Wall.
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