A Century of Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin

Orchestral pirouettes, sumptuous lyrical themes, rapid, virtuoso passages: for Sergei Rachmaninoff, one of the leading composers and most accomplished pianists and conductors of the 20th century, melody formed the “mainstay of all music”. As a consequence, his Third Symphony – written by Lake Lucerne in the mid-1930s with a break to tour America – was also saturated with melody: a work that was opulently arranged for three sets of woodwind, a full brass section, drums, percussion, celeste, two harps and strings, and aspired to the sonic ideals of late Romanticism. Vladimir Jurowski will conduct Rachmaninoff’s all too rarely performed final symphony together with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, which celebrates its centenary this year. The first part of the evening opens with the “Kleine Dreigroschenmusik” (Little Threepenny Music) – a wind suite that Kurt Weill put together from his immensely successful “Threepenny Opera”. This is followed by Kirill Gerstein with Thomas Adès’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, a work by “possibly the most sought-after musician of our time” (Wall Street Journal). This concerto, brilliantly arranged and dedicated to Gerstein, caused a sensation at its Boston premiere in 2019, receiving an ecstatic reception from the audience. A rousing work that even reminded the American critic Aaron Keebaugh of “Rachmaninoff’s much more lavish concertos”.