Petrenko Mahler

Mahler's Symphony No 4 conducted by Yannick is part of the magnificent MAHLER box set recently released by the Berliner Philharmoniker.

This Gustav Mahler edition brings together Berliner Philharmoniker recordings from the last ten years.

This Gustav Mahler edition brings together Berliner Philharmoniker recordings from the last ten years.

Vasily Petrenko and the RLPO continue their critically acclaimed Elgar project with Sea Pictures and The Music Makers, with Kathryn Rudge as soloist. Sea Pictures is one of the composer’s most popular works and as an orchestral song cycle stands alongside those by Mahler and Strauss. The Music Makers however has had a more troubled history. Elgar had worked on it on and off from 1903 and it was premiered in 1912. Both words and music came in for criticism. Elgar quotes from his symphonies, and ‘Nimrod’ as well as other sources. It can be viewed in the same way as ‘Ein Heldenleben’’ though here the composer is not a hero, but a bard.

Known as one of the world's finest orchestras, Berliner Philhamoniker has performed and recorded the symphonies and choral works of the great classical music composers since it was founded in 1882. It has been led by a series of major conductors including Austria's Herbert von Karajan and England's Simon Rattle, who was succeeded in 2019 by Kirill Petrenko from Russia. The orchestra performs more than 100 concerts a year at the Berlin Philharmonie and tours internationally. It has made thousands of recordings and won Grammy Awards and Gramophone Awards. The orchestra grew out of the Bilse Kapelle, which was established in the 1860s by Prussian composer and conductor Benjamin Bilse with 60 players.

The first four albums of the Dresdner Philharmonie featuring symphonies by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) and Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) reveal fascinating aspects shared by both composers. The most recent recording of the two Symphonies No. 5 received high praise from the critics: “Sanderling puts the interpretative bombast of the 5th Symphony behind him.

Berliner Philharmoniker One of the elite orchestras on the world stage, the Berliner Philharmoniker – also widely known as the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra – was founded in Imperial Germany in 1882. Hans von Bülow took over as conductor in 1887, raising the prestige of the organization, as did subsequent guest conductors, including Johannes Brahms, Edvard Grieg, Gustav Mahler, and Richard Strauss. In the 20th century, they survived the loss of their venue and their conductor during World War II and went on to thrive under conductor Herbert von Karajan, who led the group from 1956 to 1989. During his tenure, the orchestra won Grammy Awards for both opera and orchestral recordings. Claudio Abbado took over for Karajan from 1989 to 2002, during which time they collected five more Grammys, including one for Best Orchestral Recording for a 1979 performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 9 with Leonard Bernstein that was issued in 1992. In 2008, under the leadership of Simon Rattle, the Berlin Philharmonic established a Digital Concert Hall, which allowed audiences around the world to stream concerts either live or on demand. Kirill Petrenko became the Philharmoniker's tenth principal conductor in 2019. The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra's 50 founding members came together in 1882 after leaving a Benjamin Bilse-led group due to low pay and poor travel conditions.

In Vienna, Alexander Zemlinsky and Franz Schreker conducted experiments that could be seen as a middle road between the rigorous writing of Brahms, the orchestral opulence of Richard Strauss and the dodecaphonic radicalism of Schönberg, Berg and Webern. Unfortunately their experiments were cut short when the Nazis came to power and banned their music. Vasily Petrenko's colourful and imaginative conducting reminds us of these two composers' central importance for the history of early 20th-century music.