Concert information
Info
This season, our Berliner Philharmoniker Ensembles series is dedicated to Ludwig van Beethoven; 2027 marks the 200th anniversary of his death. Beethoven’s “Große Fuge” is a work of astonishing modernity and expressive power – qualities that many of his contemporaries found bewildering. Yet the work left a profound impression on the young Felix Mendelssohn: shortly after Beethoven’s death, the 18-year-old composed his Opus 13, in which he repeatedly alludes to the music of his great predecessor, including the Große Fuge. The programme opens with Beethoven in a lighter mood – with the Serenade in D major and the Duet with two Obbligato Eyeglasses.
Artists
Noah Bendix-Balgley violin
Hande Küden violin
Diyang Mei viola
Knut Weber cello
Programme
Ludwig van Beethoven
Serenade for String Trio in D major, op. 8
Ludwig van Beethoven
Duo for Viola and Cello “Duet with two Obbligato Eyeglasses” in E flat major, WoO 32
Ludwig van Beethoven
Große Fuge for String Quartet in B flat major, op. 133
Interval
Felix Mendelssohn
String Quartet in A minor, op. 13
Additional information
Duration ca. 2 hours and 15 minutes (incl. 20 minutes interval)
Dates and tickets
Chamber Music Hall
12 to 32 €
Introduction
19:15
with Janin Janke
Series Q: Ensembles of the Berliner Philharmoniker
Background
In the shadow of a titan
Beethoven and his successors
For the composers who followed him, Ludwig van Beethoven was both an inspiration and a challenge. How could anyone dare to measure themselves against a man who had left behind such consummate symphonies, string quartets and piano sonatas? Our series Berliner Philharmoniker Ensembles explores this uneasy relationship between role model and successors.
Biography
Noah Bendix-Balgley
“For me, playing is about sharing thoughts and emotions with fellow musicians and with the audience,” says Noah Bendix-Balgley. Born in North Carolina, the violinist was concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra from 2011 to 2015 before joining the Berliner Philharmoniker in the same position.
Alongside his work with the orchestra, Bendix-Balgley appears internationally as a soloist, including with the Berliner Philharmoniker. A committed chamber musician, he performs in several ensembles, among them a trio with pianist Robert Levin and cellist Peter Wiley and Philharmonix, a genre-crossing septet bringing together members of the Berliner and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras.
Bendix-Balgley is also closely involved with traditional klezmer music. He has performed with groups including Brave Old World, taught at workshops across Europe and the United States, and composed the klezmer violin concerto Fidl-Fantazye, performed at the Philharmonie Berlin in April 2023.
Hande Küden
As a teenager, Hande Küden excelled at both table tennis and the violin, but ultimately chose music. Competitive sport, she says, is about defeating an opponent; music, by contrast, depends on cooperation. Born in Adana, Turkey, she began learning the violin at the age of eight – despite her mother’s hopes that she might choose the piano – and at nine entered the State Conservatory of Çukurova University, where she studied with Dania Kainova. She later won first prizes at the Gülden Turalı and Necdet Remzi Atak national violin competitions.
In 2012, Küden moved to Berlin to study with Stephan Picard at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler, and from 2015 with Tabea Zimmermann, studying both violin and viola. She also attended masterclasses with Dora Schwarzberg, Natalia Prischepenko, Salvatore Accardo, Haim Taub and Kolja Blacher. Her orchestral training included a Ferenc Fricsay scholarship with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and membership of the Karajan-Akademie. From 2016 she was deputy concertmaster of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, before joining the Berliner Philharmoniker in 2019. Alongside her work with the orchestra, and as a soloist and chamber musician, she teaches at the Hochschule für Künste Bremen.
Diyang Mei
Diyang Mei first encountered the Berliner Philharmoniker and Herbert von Karajan on television. At the age of ten, he decided that he wanted to join the orchestra one day. By then, the Hunan-born musician was studying at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and had switched from violin to viola. “The viola offers players wonderful possibilities for developing a sound of their own, because there’s no fixed size or scale length for the instrument. That gives us the freedom to discover our own way of playing and of shaping tone.”
In 2014, Mei moved to Germany, studying first with Hariolf Schlichtig at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München and later with Nobuko Imai at the Kronberg Academy. At the 2018 ARD International Music Competition, he won first prize in the viola category, as well as the audience prize and several special prizes. He subsequently became principal viola of the Munich Philharmonic before joining the Berliner Philharmoniker in the same position in October 2022. “I was captivated by the atmosphere right from the start: the openness and collaborative spirit of the musicians, and the transparent, chamber-music-like way of making music together.”
Mei also appears internationally as a soloist and chamber musician, working with artists including András Schiff, Ana Chumachenco, Sabine Meyer and Christoph Prégardien.
Knut Weber
Knut Weber has been a member of the Berliner Philharmoniker’s cello section since 1998 and is also one of the Twelve Cellists. He discovered the instrument at the age of five, after hearing his older sister’s boyfriend play the cello, and immediately decided: “This is my instrument!” He received his early training with Miloš Mlejnik, later studying with the Alban Berg Quartet and Claus Kanngiesser in Cologne, and with Wolfgang Boettcher in Berlin. Further important influences included William Pleeth, Heinrich Schiff, Siegfried Palm and Bernard Greenhouse.
A prize-winner at numerous competitions, Weber was a scholarship holder and principal cellist of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra, and later a founding member of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. He joined the Berliner Philharmoniker at the age of 23. Alongside his orchestral work, he appears as a soloist and chamber musician, performing with artists including Nelson Freire, Mitsuko Uchida, Daishin Kashimoto, Noah Bendix-Balgley and Emmanuel Pahud.
As a member of the Twelve Cellists of the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Philharmonic Stradivari Soloists and the Philharmonic Piano Quartet Berlin, Weber performs regularly in Europe, Asia and the United States. He also works with youth orchestras as a teacher and soloist.
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