Concert information
Info
Kirill Petrenko launches the new season with two works that are both sumptuous and rhapsodic. Beneath their radiant surfaces, however, lie hidden messages. Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations are built not only on a deeply expressive theme, but also on encoded musical portraits of friends and family members. Pyotr Tchaikovsky, meanwhile, threads his Symphony No. 4 with a “fate motif” – a musical allusion to the life crises that accompanied him during the composition of the work. While there are moments of brightness, they are overshadowed by the spectre of impending misfortune.
Artists
Berliner Philharmoniker
Kirill Petrenko conductor
Programme
Edward Elgar
Enigma Variations, op. 36
Interval
Pyotr Tchaikovsky
Symphony No. 4 in F minor, op. 36
Additional information
Duration ca. 1 hour and 45 minutes (incl. 20 minutes interval)
Season-opening concert in association with Deutsche Bank
Dates and tickets
Main Auditorium
50 to 161 €
Introduction
18:15
Background
Biography
Kirill Petrenko
Kirill Petrenko has been chief conductor and artistic director of the Berliner Philharmoniker since the 2019/20 season. Born in Omsk in Siberia, he received his training first in his home town and later in Austria. He established his conducting career in opera with positions at the Staatstheater Meiningen and the Komische Oper Berlin. From 2013 to 2020, Kirill Petrenko was general music director of Bayerische Staatsoper. He has also made guest appearances at the world’s leading opera houses, including Wiener Staatsoper, Covent Garden in London, the Opéra national in Paris, the Metropolitan Opera in New York and at the Bayreuth Festival.
Moreover, he has conducted the major international symphony orchestras – in Vienna, Munich, Dresden, Paris, Amsterdam, London, Rome, Chicago, Cleveland and Israel. Since his debut in 2006, a variety of programmatic themes have emerged in his work together with the Berliner Philharmoniker. These include work on the orchestra’s core Classical-Romantic repertoire, most notably with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony when he took up his post. Unjustly forgotten composers such as Josef Suk and Bernd Alois Zimmermann are another of Kirill Petrenko’s interests. In opera performances with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Richard Strauss’ Elektra and Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly have recently attracted attention.
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