wed 26/06/2024

Berlin Philharmonic

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Rattle, Queen Elizabeth Hall

Anything anyone else can do, we can do better, seemed the mantra last night. It's probably a bit churlish to accuse the finest orchestra in the world of arrogance - surely that's their job? But the first night of the Berlin Philharmonic's four-...

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Competition: Sarah Willis horn CDs to give away

Sarah Willis goes solo with her CD 'Trio!': You can win a copy

We’ve got some CDs to give away, a recording of French horn music by Sarah Willis, the First Lady of the French Horn, who is also second horn in the Berlin Philharmonic. Our interview with Sarah in early September has proved to be one of the most...

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Mattila, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Rattle, Royal Albert Hall

My abiding memory of the Berlin Philharmonic’s second Prom under Sir Simon Rattle on Saturday will be of 6,000 people listening with rapt, or at any rate silent, concentration to Schoenberg, Webern and Berg. Has it ever happened before? Perhaps...

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Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Rattle, Royal Albert Hall

Call me a paradoxically wary old Mahler nut, but I reckon that given 24 months of anniversary overkill, it might keep things fresh to catch each of the symphonies live no more than once a year. So, having heard an Everest of a First Symphony from...

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Sarah Willis, First Lady of the French Horn

No woman has ever achieved a higher profile on the French horn than Sarah Willis. Why? It's not as if she is a renowned soloist. But she is the first and only woman to join the brass section of the world's most celebrated and widely followed...

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Vuvuzela: a final note from Berlin

The vuvuzela's long and literally monotonous journey from Soweto to the very epicentre of high European culture is complete. During the World Cup they blew it with incessant vigour on the terraces of South Africa's stadiums. Now they're blowing it...

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Now Newsnight is at it...

The BBC's cultural conscience has been pricked, it would seem, by the World Cup now reaching its endgame in South Africa. Either that or departments don't talk to one another. Singing for Life, Sunday night's documentary on BBC Four about the young...

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All Das Jazz: the Berlin Phil swing with Wynton Marsalis

"It was only on Monday afternoon that the final scores of three of the movements were put into my hands," says Sir Simon Rattle, chuckling at the memory and casting a mock glance of disapproval at the composer and trumpeter Wynton Marsalis who is...

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The Berlin Philharmonic European Concert 2010, Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford

Berlin comes to Oxford: May Day at the Sheldonian with Barenboim and the Berliners

"Madness! Madness! Everywhere madness!" The unsung words of cobbler-philosopher Hans Sachs in the third-act prelude to Wagner's Die Meistersinger might seem like an odd opening manifesto for the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra's annual May Day...

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