Musikfest Berlin 2018: Rituals, Ceremonies, Actions and Symphonies

From 31 August to 18 September, the Berliner Festspiele present a total of 65 pieces by approximately 25 composers at its Musikfest, with Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, George Benjamin, Claude Debussy and Bernd Alois Zimmermann taking centre stage. In addition to Berlin-based orchestras, guests include orchestras and ensembles from the USA, the Netherlands, France and Switzerland. A total of 22 instrumental and vocal ensembles and over 30 international soloists are scheduled to perform.

                 Berliner Philharmoniker. Photo by Stefan Hoederath

At this year’s Musikfest Berlin 2018 festival programme, the emphasis is on pieces that contain ritual and ceremonial musical forms, actions and scenes. The formats presented stretch from the cantata, concert versions of opera scenes through to performances involving film with live music.

For the third time in the Musikfest’s history, the Boston Symphony Orchestra will make the trip from overseas. After performing Gustav Mahler’s 6th Symphony in the Philharmonie just after being appointed chief conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 2015, Andris Nelsons will now bring together his two work domains by performing Gustav Mahler’s 3rd Symphony with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the choirs of the Gewandhaus Leipzig.

                       Andris Nelsons. Photo by Marco Borggreve

An always welcome and celebrated guest in Berlin is the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, whose chief conductor Daniele Gatti devotes this year’s programme to works by Anton Webern, Alban Berg and Anton Bruckner. Also from the Netherlands is the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra with chief conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, also with Bruckner in their luggage. They are first-time guests at the festival, participating in the Bernd Alois Zimmermann focal point marking the 100th birthday of the composer by performing his “Sinfonie in einem Satz” from 1951. The Müncher Philharmoniker under Valery Gergiev will present Bernd Alois Zimmermann‘s final completed work, the cantata “Ich wandte mich und sah an alles Unrecht, das geschah unter der Sonne”, which the composer labelled an “ecclesiastical action”.

The Berliner Philharmoniker will perform Zimmermann’s violin concert with Carolin Widmann as soloist, as well as pieces by Ligeti entangled with the individual movements from Debussy’s “Images”. Similarly, Claude Debussy is among this year’s jubilarians, with the 100th anniversary of his death being marked this year. Following Alexander Melnikov’s performance of Claude Debussy’s complete “Préludes pour piano” the evening before, the Staatskapelle Berlin officially opens the 2018 Musikfest under Daniel Barenboim on 1 September at the Philharmonie. On the programme are Igor Stravinsky’s “Le Sacre du printemps” and Pierre Boulez’ “Rituel” with the orchestral groups set up around the audience in a circular manner, a formation the composer himself created in 2010 with the Musikfest Berlin.

     Daniel Barenboim & Staatskapelle Berlin. Photo by Holger Kettner

The ritual-ceremonial act of the opening corresponds to the Musikfest Berlin’s finale. The Orchestra of the Lucerne Festival Academy, which was founded by Pierre Boulez in 2003, comes to Berlin for the first time, performing the evening-filling prayer ceremony “INORI – Anbetungen für zwei Tänzermimen und großes Orchester” byKarlheinz Stockhausen in the original large orchestral arrangement under Peter Eötvös. Stockhausen’s compository creation for piano can be experienced at the festival with Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Tamara Stefanovich and percussionist Dirk Rothbrust. Karlheinz Stockhausen would have turned 90 this year.

The festival programme unfolds from the three composer names – Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Bernd Alois Zimmermann – through to music from Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinsky, from Richard Wagner and Anton Bruckner, from Anton Webern and György Ligeti, and finally to the oeuvre of George Benjamin. Together with the Musikfest Berlin, the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation devotes a special focal point to the English-born composer and conductor during the 2018/2019 season: a total of seven concerts are scheduled with operas, piano and chamber music and orchestra works, three of them under the guise of the festival itself.

                                 Pierre Boulez. Photo by Kai Bienert

A piece by composer Mathias Spahlinger that is central in contemporary music yet only rarely performed is on the Musikfest Berlin 2018 programme: “passage/paysage”, which for the younger composer generation amounts to Stravinksy’s “le sacre du printemps” in its radicalism. The Ensemble Modern Orchestra performs this exceptional piece and seven compositions by Anton Webern, building on the Ensemble’s “Opus Anton Webern” initiative, which took place together with the Berliner Festwochen 35 years ago.

A further Musikfest Berlin 2018 highlight is the performance of the restored version (2007) of the silent film “J’accuse” by Abel Gance from 1918/19 with newly composed music by Philippe Schoeller (2014) by the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin with Frank Strobel, which takes place in cooperation with arte. In addition, the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin under chief conductor Robin Ticciati will give a concertante performance of Claude Debussy’s “Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien”. 

                                  J'accuze. © Lobster Films Paris

The 27 Musikfest Berlin 2018 events take place at the Philharmonie Berlin and itsKammermusiksaal, at the Grosse Sendesaal of the rbb, at the Konzerthaus Berlin, at the Pierre Boulez Saal and in the St. Matthäus-Kirche. 

A total of 17 concerts of Musikfest Berlin 2018 as well as the “Critics’ Quartet”will be recorded and broadcast by Deutschlandfunk Kultur and rbb Kulturradio.

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