Discover all the background stories, interviews, portraits, essays and backstage stories about the Berliner Philharmoniker.

Black and white portrait of Germaine Tailleferre. She is wearing a dark hat and a coat with a lavish fur collar. Her expression is serious and she is looking directly into the camera.
Germaine Tailleferre, ca. 1940 | Picture:Collection Dupondt / akg-images

Princess or wallflower?

In the 1920s, Germaine Tailleferre stirred up the musical life of France as a member of the composers’ collective “Les Six”, yet she still fell into neglect. Here is a portrait of her turbulent life.

  • History
  • Portrait
Portrait of Anton Bruckner. He is looking to his right side, holding documents in his hands.
Anton Bruckner (between 1925–1936) | Picture:Anton Huber (reproduction photographer), Wien Museum

The Misfit

Anton Bruckner was always an outsider in Vienna’s polite society. Who was this “mifit” and what motivated him? In search of the evidence.

  • Portrait
Peter Eötvös | Picture:Marco Borggreve

I’d like to take people with me on a journey

Composer and conductor Peter Eötvös died in March of this year at the age of eighty. When the Berliner Philharmoniker give the German premiere of his piano concerto “Cziffra Psodia” this September, the orchestra pays homage to a passionate musician who was a close associate for decades.

  • Portrait
An apple and a pear lie on a black background

The intimate strangers

Bruckner and Mahler were titans. Both men were symphonists whose works were unprecedented in their length. They had neither predecessors nor successors. They were close and simultaneously distant. A closer look at the lives of these two disparate symphonists.

  • History

Fanning the flames

Today, concerts featuring Bruckner’s symphonies are among the Berliner Philharmoniker’s seasonal highlights, but this was not always the case. On the Bruckner tradition of the Berliner Philharmoniker.

  • Orchestra History
Clara Schumann sitting on the piano (left), Robert Schumann is standing next to her and looking towards her (right).
Clara and Robert Schumann, 1850 | Picture:National Library of France, France - No Copyright - Other Known Legal Restrictions

The Springtime of Love

For Robert Schumann, the early years of his marriage to Clara Wieck were a time of happiness and exuberant creativity. Some of his finest works date from this period.

  • History
Kotowa Machida | Picture:Thomas Meyer/Ostkreuz

Kotowa Machida: If I were not a musician

In this section we introduce members of the Berliner Philharmoniker and their extramusical passions. Today: Violinist Kotowa Machida, for whom cooking is pure relaxation.

  • If I were not a musician ...
A sheet of music with the title “Boléro”, with the main theme written in notes underneath
Autograph of the “Boléro” theme | Picture:Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Maurice Ravel’s “Boléro”: 7 facts about the world-famous work

A masterpiece, “unfortunately without music” was Ravel’s own judgement of his work. Discover 7 entertaining facts about the piece.

A short piano lexicon

Prélude, nocturne, sonata and étude – in our short piano lexicon, we introduce you to the major genres of piano music one at a time.

Joseph Joachim, 1899 | Picture:Wilhelm Dreesen (artist), Public Domain, Albertina Austria via Europeana

Johannes Brahms and Joseph Joachim

Without the violinist Joseph Joachim, Brahms would probably never have written his Violin Concerto. The work is the result and the expression of a long-standing friendship.

  • History
Eun Sun Kim | Picture:Kim Tae-hwan

Paradox on the Podium

Conductor Eun Sun Kim makes her debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker.

  • Portrait

Franz Schubert: Music like an Infinity Symbol

His music can suspend all sense of time, as if, while exploring the streets of a large city, you gradually lose yourself in the moment.

The sound of crime and retribution

It always be considered Richard Strauss’ most modern work. He set the most intense and most complex emotions to music - revenge, guilt, madness, painful memories and the struggle for what is just.

  • Introduction

Ludwig van Beethoven the pianist

Ludwig van Beethoven was a piano prodigy; he enjoyed the greatest successes of his early career as a pianist. However, as his hearing deteriorated, this changed.

Blattgerippe
Picture:Dominik Scythe

Gustav and Alma Mahler

Should she really accept his offer of marriage? At twenty-two, Alma was an extraordinarily beautiful and charismatic woman. Mahler was a social climber from the provinces.

  • History
Jonathan Kelly | Picture:Annette Hauschild/Ostkreuz

Jonathan Kelly: If I were not a musician ...

In this section, we introduce members of the Berliner Philharmoniker and their extramusical passions. Today: Jonathan Kelly has a green thumb.

  • If I were not a musician ...
Peter Tschaikowsky, probably 1888 | Picture:Atelier E. Bieber, Hamburg, probably by Leonard Berlin (1841–1931), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and the Berliner Philharmoniker

Art is sometimes a step ahead of politics. On 8 February 1888, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky stood at the podium of the Berliner Philharmoniker as the conductor of his own works.

  • History
The Hollywood Sign in Los Angeles

Arnold Schoenberg in exile

In the 1940s, composers, writers, visual artists and other intellectuals who had fled the Nazis gathered in Los Angeles.

  • History
Illuminated window in the night

Brightening up sleepless nights

The mysteries of the “Goldberg Variations”

  • Introduction

Verdi’s Messa da Requiem

Fear of death and the end of the world in Italian. Verdi's Messa da Requiem is a showdown between art and the church.

  • Introduction
The "Watschenkonzert" of 1913 in an anonymous contemporary caricature | Picture:akg-images / brandstaetter images

Schoenberg’s Slap-in-the-Face Concert

A memorable Schoenberg performance in 1913

  • History
Pallas Athene, 1898 | Picture:Gustav Klimt (Künstler), Birgit und Peter Kainz (Fotograf*in), CC BY 4.0, Wien Museum

Between morbidity and life force

The fin de siècle

The storm in music

Especially with thunder and lightning, composers can impressively let their creativity and feeling for striking sound effects run free.

  • History
Matthew McDonald | Picture:Paula Winkler / Ostkreuz

If I were not a musician ...

Double bass player Matthew McDonald loves poetry – and not only in music.

  • If I were not a musician ...
Komponistin Marianna Martines | Picture:Anton von Maron, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The composer Marianna Martines

Composing child prodigy, harpsichord virtuoso and singer: in 17th century Vienna, her domestic academies were musical hotspots.

  • History
  • Portrait
Hans Scharoun with a cigarette in his mouth and a note pad and pencil in his hands.
Hans Scharoun | Picture:Archive Akademie der Künste, Berlin

In celebration of Hans Scharoun

A declaration of love to his most famous building: the Philharmonie Berlin.

  • History
  • Orchestra History

Mysterious symphonies

Mozart’s Symphonies Nos. 39 to 41 are regarded as the pinnacle of his instrumental oeuvre - and are at the same time shrouded in mystery.

Antonie Brentano | Picture:Josef Karl Stieler (1781–1858), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Who was Beethoven’s “Immortal Beloved”?

Beethoven dedicated the first print of his Seventh Symphony to Antonie Brentano. Was she perhaps his “Immortal Beloved”? To this day, the mystery has not been completely resolved.

  • History
On the Brooklyn Bridge. Three people can be recognised.
New York, Brooklyn Bridge | Picture:Leibniz-Institut für Länderkunde

Yearningly successful

His two-and-a-half-year stay in America was an ambivalent time for Antonín Dvořák – characterized by triumphs, enthusiasm about new impressions, but also yearning for his Bohemian homeland.

  • History
  • Portrait