Berliner Philharmoniker 1

Even as a schoolboy, Robert Schumann spent many a sleepless night reading Lord Byron’s dramatic poem Manfred, whose extravagant title hero fascinated him. Twenty years later, he created a musical monument to the character through his incidental music. The turbulent overture, one of Schumann’s finest works, is designed as a portrait of Manfred. Meanwhile, Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Oboe Concerto was inspired by a musical role model. He composed it in 1952 as a tribute to Igor Stravinsky, who was considered persona non grata by the post-war avant-garde. Albrecht Mayer, the “king of the oboe” who was the “artiste étoile” at the 2008 Lucerne Festival, will perform this modern masterpiece. Johannes Brahms, for his part, took 14 years to complete his First Symphony, struggling with the “giant” shadow of Beethoven, whom he constantly heard marching behind him. But Brahms eventually found an original solution: in the finale he uses a melody he had heard on the Rigi played by an alphorn. And when the Berliner Philharmoniker, a first-class Brahms orchestra, perform this work with their Chief Conductor Kirill Petrenko, perfect musical bliss is assured.