Classics of classical music

Where should you start when you are only just beginning? Which pieces must you have heard from the great repertoire of classical music? We propose five famous works that will be performed during the 2023/24 season. Shortly before each concert, you will find videos here in which our musicians present the work to be performed.

Beethoven: Symphony No. 5

It begins – ta-ta-ta-taaa – with the most famous four notes in musical history. Whether as a ringtone or in musical slapstick numbers, as film music or in «Peanuts,» the beginning of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 is ubiquitous. But not only that is remarkable; far more so is what Beethoven developed from those four notes. The entire symphony ultimately grows out of these, climaxing in its lush, exuberant, overwhelming finale.

Listen here to an excerpt of Beethoven's Fifth – played by Andreas Janke, Rafael Rosenfeld, Frank Sanderell, Yu Sun and Enrico Filippo Maligno. Arranged by Rafael Rosenfeld.

Mahler: Symphony No. 5

And there’s another «Fifth» that you shouldn’t miss – Gustav Mahler’s, which Paavo Järvi will be conducting to launch his new Mahler Cycle. Audiences initially gave the piece a lukewarm reception. The «Fifth» is a «cursed work,» Mahler wrote. «Nobody understands it …» However, that has long since changed; it is now one of the most popular of all symphonies. And it even managed a career in film: Luchino Visconti used the «Adagietto» from the piece for the soundtrack of his cult film «Death in Venice.»

Philippe Litzler, solo trumpet, plays us an excerpt from Mahler's 5th Symphony.

Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No. 1

Stalin was dead, and composers, who had long been tightly controlled, once more enjoyed greater freedom. Shostakovich took advantage of this newfound liberty in his first Cello Concerto, written in 1959, with great temperament and imagination. It is often said that a reckoning with Stalin can be heard in the piece. Above all, however, the listener will hear how confidently Shostakovich strikes very different notes – and how in doing so he finds his very own voice.

Our solo cellist Paul Handschke and solo horn player Ivo Gass will play the famous opening motif for us.

Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1

The beginning of this piano concerto is not quite as famous as that of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, but almost. The horns make a grand entrance, interrupted by the orchestra – anyone who has ever heard this introduction will never forget it. And the rest of the work keeps up the pace: «So original, so noble, so powerful,» was the verdict of piano virtuoso Hans von Bülow, who premièred the concerto in Boston in 1875.

Our concertmaster Julia Becker plays us the legendary beginning.

Berlioz: «Symphonie fantastique»

Hector Berlioz was only 26 years old when he wrote his «Symphonie fantastique» – and scored a coup. The work was unusual in every respect. With its unusual combinations of sounds, but above all with the programme Berlioz supplied with it. The music tells the story of «the life of an artist.» And – of course – it is also about love. Incidentally, the woman characterised with a musical «idée fixe» indeed existed. Her name was Harriet Smithson – and she later married Berlioz.

Our clarinettist, Florian Walser, plays us an excerpt on his E flat clarinet and tells us more about this exciting work.

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Click here for the video clips of the 2022/23 season.