The open question
Are there certain passages in symphonic repertoire that inspire fear?

In this section, we answer questions you’ve always wanted to ask the Berliner Philharmoniker – about what happens on stage, behind the scenes, or about the orchestra in general.

Yes, even the musicians of the Berliner Philharmoniker have a healthy respect for particularly tricky passages. Take Marlene Ito, principal second violinist, for example – she considers her solo at the end of Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben to be a real challenge. It's an intense moment by any reckoning. Just before her solo, the entire violin section plays a passage in which the G-string is tuned down by a semitone ("scordatura", a technique seldom employed in orchestral music). “Right before the battle scene, we have to retune it quickly back up to G. That’s difficult, especially because the orchestra is playing quite loudly at that point, making it hard to hear the pitch clearly. And then my solo starts – half of it played on that very open G-string. I always pray that I've tuned it accurately.”

Like musical catastrophe tourists, some members of the audience actually wait for these notorious moments – for instance, the horn solo at the beginning of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony, or the trumpet solo that opens Mahler’s Fifth. These excerpts are also standard fare in auditions for orchestral positions. “I know several internationally-acclaimed soloists who admit that they have certain ‘fear spots’,” says violinist Christoph Streuli. “And it’s not just the soloists – even tutti players, meaning the whole section, face demanding passages. In preparation, we work meticulously on intonation, rhythm, dynamics, tone color, and overall sound. But in terms of the psychological challenge, we all have to find our own strategies – through things like autogenic training, yoga, or something similar.”

And of course, lived experience offers many lessons to help make those tricky moments less stressful. Marlene Ito, for example, suffered from an arm cramp during a performance after carrying a bulky parcel during the day. Since then, she has avoided carrying anything heavy on concert days.