No Berliner Philharmonic trip to the United States is complete without concerts at Carnegie Hall. The orchestra’s first appearance there was in 1955, marking the beginning of a long association. This year’s tour of the Americas also began in New York. Following a festive gala opening the season with tenor Jonas Kaufmann, three further concerts featured music by Brahms, Elgar, Strauss and Tchaikovsky. A few memories of these evenings in pictures …
On 9 October at 8 pm, the programme in Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium opened with Johannes Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1. Víkingur Ólafsson was the soloist, stepping in for the indisposed Daniil Trifonov. After the interval came Richard Strauss’s ++Also sprach Zarathustra++, op. 30, whose famous sunrise music Stanley Kubrick sent into space in his 1968 film ++2001: A Space Odyssey++. Discover five fascinating facts about the work on our blog.
Both works on the programme on 10 October at 8 pm shared the same opus number: 36. Edward Elgar’s ++Enigma Variations++ was paired with Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 in F minor. In his 14 variations, Elgar depicts friends and loved ones, as well as himself, in a series of musical portraits. The orchestra performed this programme at the BBC Proms and the Edinburgh International Festival earlier this year, and will play it again in South America.
The Berliner Philharmoniker’s New York visit ended with more Brahms and Strauss in a Sunday matinee at Carnegie Hall. Víkingur Ólafsson returned to the piano for the 2 pm concert. The next day, the orchestra travelled on to Bogotá, Colombia, for the first time in its history. You can discover the full itinerary here.