A Tentative Encounter 
The Berliner Philharmoniker in China

When the Berliner Philharmoniker and Kirill Petrenko travel to China this November, they will encounter a vibrant classical music scene. It was a very different picture when the orchestra performed in Beijing for the first time in 1979 under the direction of Herbert von Karajan. A retrospective.

In no other country has the status of classical music changed so fundamentally in recent decades as it has in the People’s Republic of China. Spectacular concert halls designed by famous architects not only enable guest performances by international orchestras; they also stand as visible symbols of the high regard in which the works of Beethoven, Brahms, and their peers are held. Half a century ago, the situation could not have been more different. During the Cultural Revolution, President Mao Zedong had banned Western music, and the great European composers were classed as state enemies. A classical concert, long part of everyday life in Japan, would have been unthinkable in China at the time.

Against this backdrop, the significance of the Berliner Philharmoniker's first tour of China in 1979 cannot be overestimated. Just three years after Mao’s death, it represented a cautious sign of the country’s cultural opening. By then, the composers of the Western canon had been rehabilitated, and so Chief Conductor Herbert von Karajan was able to present a cross-section of his core repertoire in three concerts in Beijing: Beethoven’s Symphonies Nos. 4 and 7, symphonies by Mozart, Brahms, and Dvořák, and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. The last work was briefly called into question when the Chinese organisers realised that Mussorgsky came from ideologically-hostile Russia.

This rapprochement was not without hurdles. When the orchestra arrived at Beijing airport, a defective gangway resulted in two musicians falling six meters onto the concrete below. They were hospitalised with broken bones; it seemed an inauspicious beginning. In addition, the city lacked a suitable concert hall, so the orchestra had to perform in an acousticall- inadequate sports arena. Another challenge for the musicians was the packed audience attending the dress rehearsal. The public, unfamiliar with the rituals of the Western concert world, talked, ate, and wandered around as the orchestra played, until an exasperated Karajan threatened to exclude them from the rehearsal altogether.

The actual concerts, each attended by over 4,000 people, turned out to be a complete success; the disruptive behaviour of the rehearsal was absent, perhaps because brochures and loudspeaker announcements enjoined attendees to behave appropriately. Although much of the audience consisted of handpicked workers and officials, there were also genuine enthusiasts, who arrived, dusty and exhausted, from the provinces, and queued for hours in front of the box office for tickets that were otherwise unaffordable. Each concert ended with enthusiastic ovations. A particularly emotional highlight came when, at the second concert, members of the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Central Philharmonic Orchestra of Beijing performed Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony together under Karajan’s baton. When asked by a journalist whether he could imagine conducting an opera in China one day – perhaps Turandot in the Imperial Palace? – Karajan, deeply moved, replied: “We shall see – it must be allowed to blossom.” Yet he never returned to China, and the Berliner Philharmoniker did not perform there again until 2005.

At that time, under the direction of Simon Rattle, the orchestra embarked on its first extensive Asian tour, with concerts in Beijing, Seoul, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taipei, and Tokyo. At the Chinese concerts it was evident that concert-going had become an indispensable part of a cultivated lifestyle. The new status of classical music owed much to the global career of pianist Lang Lang. Following his example, millions of aspiring pianists flocked to music schools. At a press conference in Beijing, Simon Rattle expressed his great enthusiasm for this development: “Lang Lang is probably just the tip of an iceberg that is moving towards us,” he said, “but for the development of Western classical music, this can only be a good thing. Every new influence keeps the art alive.”

And then there are the new concert halls: architectural and acoustic masterpieces that can now be found in almost every Chinese metropolis. Many of them have now hosted performances by the Berliner Philharmoniker – like the orchestra's 2005 concert  at Shanghai's Oriental Art Center, which had just opened, and which is also on the schedule of the current tour with Kirill Petrenko. Likewise, there are excellent halls in Beijing and Hong Kong, where the orchestra has returned time and again. By now, the Berliner Philharmoniker's travels have extended to cities which, despite their enormous size, are surprisingly little known in the West: Guangzhou (16 million inhabitants), Wuhan (8 million), Shenzhen (18 million), and Xi’an (13 million) – all overwhelmingly dynamic metropolises offering traveling orchestras outstanding performance conditions.

Just as impressive as the cities and their concert halls is the development of China’s musical scene. Many pianists have gone on to international careers. Alongside Lang Lang, Yuja Wang deserves special mention; she appeared as soloist with the Berliner Philharmoniker on their most recent China tour in 2023. Chinese orchestras, too, have now reached high international standards, with ensembles such as the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra being heard increasingly often in Europe and North America. These developments have directly benefited the Berliner Philharmoniker in recent years: in 2022, Diyang Mei became principal viola and the first Chinese member of the orchestra, followed in 2024 by Yun Zeng as principal horn. The relationship between the Berliner Philharmoniker and China has entered a new era – what began in Karajan’s time as a tentative mutual curiosity has evolved into a genuine exchange on equal footing.