Berliner Philharmonie 3 September 2020 - Ensemble Modern | GoComGo.com

Ensemble Modern

Berliner Philharmonie, Main Hall (DOUBLE), Berlin, Germany
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8 PM
Important Info
Type: Classical Concert
City: Berlin, Germany
Starts at: 20:00
Duration:

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Festival

Musikfest Berlin 2020

33 performances, nine world premieres

Musikfest Berlin 2020 will approach the beginning of the concert season with caution. Its new programme will follow the rules that protective measures from the COVID-19 pandemic have placed on public concerts. Many of the projects that have been prepared across Germany to mark this Beethoven year have fallen victim to the coronavirus crisis and have been postponed until next year.

Programme
George Benjamin: At First Light, for chamber orchestra
Wolfgang Rihm: Jagden und Formen, for orchestra
Overview

The Ensemble Modern is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. At Musikfest Berlin, it will present a concert evening with two familiar figures: the composer George Benjamin, with whom the ensemble has enjoyed a long collaboration for decades, and Wolfgang Rihm, whose work in progress “Jagden und Formen” premiered 12 years ago. At that time, “Jagden und Formen” was still a manageable score, which over the years has developed into a gigantic work landscape lasting one hour.

The for decades internationally renowned Ensemble Modern is based in Frankfurt and was founded exactly 40 years ago by a group of students of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie who followed the ideal of grassroots democratic cooperation without a conductor. Today, the ensemble unites 18 soloists of the most diverse origins and hosts an academy for the promotion of young artists. The musicians’ repertoire comprises numerous works from the fields of music theatre, chamber music, orchestral music, dance and video projects, which they have performed in front of audiences internationally. This is also true for the works of this concert evening, with which they have repeatedly dealt with in various collaborations and constellations. “At First Light” by George Benjamin, with whom the ensemble has enjoyed a long and fruitful collaboration in terms of composition and conducting, was composed when the ensemble was still on its way to international fame. Inspired by a late painting by William Turner, George Benjamin was interested in “melting firmly defined objects – musical phrases, for example” and transforming them into a flow of sound with all its wonders and pitfalls.

This project comes very close to Wolfgang Rihm’s ideal of a “musique fleuve”. His “Jagden und Formen”, a work in progress, whose first phase of creation took place between 1995 and 2001, was premiered by Ensemble Modern in 2001, which also performed the premiere of the final version in 2008. “I keep opening up sluices and digging valleys so that all this can flow together; I am, so to speak, the gardener of this work landscape. Composing is an organic process for me. It is based on the idea that something is always being pushed forward and thereby generates something new.” (Wolfgang Rihm) Just as the composer wrote, rewrote and overwrote the hour-long piece in several stages and layers, the ensemble continues to develop the auditory form through new experiences and insights. In this “journey through work landscapes” (Barbara Zuber), which at times escalates into frenzy, but also knows ways of quiet sensitivity, the Concerto for Orchestra is transformed into a great dance, which becomes vivid and remains imaginary at the same time.

Venue Info

Berliner Philharmonie - Berlin
Location   Herbert-von-Karajan-Str. 1

The Berliner Philharmonie is a concert hall in Berlin, Germany and home to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. The Philharmonie lies on the south edge of the city's Tiergarten and just west of the former Berlin Wall. The Philharmonie is on Herbert-von-Karajan-Straße, named for the orchestra's longest-serving principal conductor. The building forms part of the Kulturforum complex of cultural institutions close to Potsdamer Platz.

The Philharmonie consists of two venues, the Grand Hall (Großer Saal) with 2,440 seats and the Chamber Music Hall (Kammermusiksaal) with 1,180 seats. Though conceived together, the smaller hall was opened in the 1980s, some twenty years after the main building.

Hans Scharoun designed the building, which was constructed over the years 1960–1963. It opened on 15 October 1963 with Herbert von Karajan conducting Beethoven's 9th Symphony. It was built to replace the old Philharmonie, destroyed by British bombers on 30 January 1944, the eleventh anniversary of Hitler becoming Chancellor. The hall is a singular building, asymmetrical and tentlike, with the main concert hall in the shape of a pentagon. The height of the rows of seats increases irregularly with distance from the stage. The stage is at the centre of the hall, surrounded by seating on all sides. The so-called vineyard-style seating arrangement (with terraces rising around a central orchestral platform) was pioneered by this building, and became a model for other concert halls, including the Sydney Opera House (1973), Denver's Boettcher Concert Hall (1978), the Gewandhaus in Leipzig (1981), Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles (2003), and the Philharmonie de Paris (2014).

Jazz pianist Dave Brubeck and his quartet recorded three live performances at the hall; Dave Brubeck in Berlin (1964), Live at the Berlin Philharmonie (1970), and We're All Together Again for the First Time (1973). Miles Davis's 1969 live performance at the hall has also been released on DVD.

On 20 May 2008 a fire broke out at the hall. A quarter of the roof suffered considerable damage as firefighters cut openings to reach the flames beneath the roof. The hall interior sustained water damage but was otherwise "generally unharmed". Firefighters limited damage using foam. The cause of the fire was attributed to welding work, and no serious damage was caused either to the structure or interior of the building. Performances resumed, as scheduled, on 1 June 2008 with a concert by the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra.

The main organ was built by Karl Schuke, Berlin, in 1965, and renovated in 1992, 2012 and 2016. It has four manuals and 91 stops. The pipes of the choir organs and the Tuba 16' and Tuba 8' stops are not assigned to any group and can be played from all four manuals and the pedals.

Important Info
Type: Classical Concert
City: Berlin, Germany
Starts at: 20:00
Duration:
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