Kirill Petrenko and Lisa Batiashvili

Lisa Batiashvili (photo: Stefan Höderath)

Karol Szymanowski’s heartfelt, passionate, and mysterious First Violin Concerto is regarded as a secret declaration of love for the violinist Paul Kochanski. Lisa Batiashvili, Artist in Residence for the 2023/24 season, as a master of nuance, is well-placed to fully unleash the poetry and richness of tonal colour in this piece. Not secretly, but quite openly, Richard Strauss depicts his family life in his Symphonia domestica in an ironically humorous way, including the screaming of children, marital strife and loving reconciliation. The conductor of the evening is Kirill Petrenko.

Berliner Philharmoniker

Kirill Petrenko conductor

Lisa Batiashvili violin

Johannes Brahms

Tragic Overture in D minor, op. 81

Karol Szymanowski

Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 1, op. 35

Lisa Batiashvili violin

Richard Strauss

Symphonia domestica, op. 53

Dates and Tickets

Biographies

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 Meininger Theater 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 Erich Wolfgang Korngold are another of Kirill Petrenko’s interests. Russian works are also highlighted, with performances of Tchaikovsky’s operas MazeppaIolanta and The Queen of Spades attracting particular attention recently.

Lisa Batiashvili

A glorious, nuanced tone characterises Lisa Batiashvili’s playing, and for good reason. She herself says: “Many musicians think that beauty of sound is less important than expression. You need that, too. But for me, the sound of the violin – like the human voice – reflects the soul of the musician.” There is no doubt about it: Lisa Batiashvili, who studied under Mark Lubotsky in Hamburg and Ana Chumachenko in Munich, is one of the world’s most renowned violinists. She regularly works with orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, and she has also been a regular guest with the Berliner Philharmoniker since 2004. Her recordings have received prizes such as the Echo-Klassik and the Midem Classical Award, and Musical America named her “Instrumentalist of the Year” in 2015. The Georgian-born German musician, who received an honorary doctorate from the Sibelius Academy of the University of the Arts in Helsinki in 2018, established her own Foundation in 2021, which is committed to supporting young, highly talented musicians from Georgia. Lisa Batiashvili plays a "del Gesu" violin from the year 1739 by Joseph Guarneri. Her recordings (Secret Love Letters and City Lights are her most recent albums) have received numerous prizes, including the Echo Klassik and the Midem Classical Award.

Kirill Petrenko (photo: Stephan Rabold)

Artist in Residence

The Reflection of the Soul: Portrait of Lisa Batiashvili

Portrait

The composer Karol Szymanowski