Berliner Philharmoniker

For over twenty years, Marek Janowski renounced two artistic fields that meant a great deal to him: conducting staged operas and concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic. He missed both. At a late stage in life, he is now returning to both of these activities. Last year in Bayreuth at 77 years of age, he made his debut with the “Ring des Nibelungen”; now, as part of the Musikfest, he will be conducting the Berlin Philharmonic. With this programme, he is in his element: in the place where opera and symphony intersect. The interpretation of the preludes from Hans Pfitzner’s opera “Palestrina” requires the same symphonic precision and transparency with which they were composed. Anton Bruckner called his fourth a “Romantic symphony,” just as Richard Wagner called “Lohengrin” a romantic opera. The relationship between the two works is not limited to their sobriquets; it extends to their musical substance and progression too. The Fourth begins with an almost scenic fantasy and ends with an apotheosis of its beginning.