Alisa’s

May morning in Oxford, and the Berliner Philharmoniker join in the celebratory mood abroad in the university city’s medieval streets with this concert in Sir Christopher Wren’s glorious Sheldonian Theatre. For 20 years, the Philharmoniker have given a May Day concert in one of Europe’s great historic cities, and here, under the baton of Daniel Barenboim, the Berlin players thrill the Oxford audience with the sonorous Prelude to Act III of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger, a deeply-felt account of Elgar’s autumnal Cello Concerto by the young American cellist Alisa Weilerstein, and a rousing performance of Brahms’s life-affi rming First Symphony.

Old Souls presents masterworks of Beethoven, Dvořák, Wolf and Kreisler in new arrangements for flute and strings, played by a group of outstanding young musicians. Guy Braunstein’s arrangements display these well-known pieces in a fresh new light, while simultaneously expanding the flute repertoire and showcasing the exceptional possibilities of the instrument, here played by Gili Schwarzman. Braunstein and Schwarzman are joined by violinist Susanna Yoko Henkel, violist Amihai Grosz and cellist Alisa Weilerstein. While the arrangement of Beethoven’s Violin Sonata Op. 23 entails a thorough recomposition of the original, the performances of Dvořák’s “American” String Quartet, Wolf’s “Italian” Serenade and Kreisler’s Syncopation stay closer to the source, with the flute taking up the role originally played by the first violin.