Tony Cooper’s cultural break takes in a brand new Torsten Rasch piece, Beethoven’s Choral Symphony, Mendelssohn’s Paulus & artists of Circus Roncalli

He delivered a brand-new and thrilling work entitled Pataphor (the phrase means an prolonged metaphor that goes past mere comparability to create a deeper, typically absurd or surreal connection between two seemingly unrelated issues) to open Vladimir Jurowski’s live performance on the Konzerthaus am Gendarmenmarkt located simply off Unter den Linden, a jewel in Berlin’s magnificent architectural crown.

As an apart, the Gendarmenmarkt, created on the finish of the seventeenth century by Johann Arnold Nering as a market for the Linden Markt, derives its title from the Regiment Gens d’Armes. Essentially the most conspicuous constructing within the sq., the Konzerthaus, is graciously flanked by the imposing neo-classical-designed French and German cathedrals whereas a statue of Germany’s most well-known playwright, poet and thinker, Friedrich Schiller, proudly stands within the centre.

However like most of Berlin’s historic websites Gendarmenmarkt has had a really chequered historical past. As an example, the Konzerthaus was constructed on the ruins of the Nationwide Theatre designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, one among Berlin’s most distinguished architects, who was additionally chargeable for the reconstruction of the Berliner Dom, the equal of St Paul’s Cathedral. He redesigned it for the brand new Schauspielhaus and theatre duly opened in the summertime of 1821 internet hosting the première of Carl Maria von Weber’s romantic opera, Der Freischütz.

Nevertheless, if Beethoven was deemed a pioneering and free-thinking composer, the identical, I really feel, might be mentioned of Torsten Rasch. As an example, he has labored with the likes of German industrial metal-band, Rammstein, on their ground-breaking, modern 2002 work, Mein Herz brennt (My Coronary heart burns), a 65-minute song-cycle commissioned by the Dresdner Sinfoniker and primarily based on music/lyrics penned by members of the German band Rammstein.

ll acquired by audiences in Dresden and Berlin, a Deutsche Grammophon recording, which was awarded Finest World Première Recording on the Echo Classical Awards in 2006, adopted that includes René Pape, Katharina Thalbach and the Dresdner Sinfoniker performed by John Carewe. In Could 2009, the London Philharmonic Orchestra below Vladimir Jurowski efficiently carried out Mein Herz brennt in London.

Ahead-thinking, too, Rasch has additionally collaborated with the London-based synth-pop duo, Pet Store Boys (Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe) on a soundtrack for Sergey Eisenstein’s traditional silent movie of 1925, The Battleship Potemkin, commissioned by London’s ICA in 2006. The work sparked an excessive amount of curiosity in Rasch’s music particularly after it acquired a ‘dwell’ screened exhibiting in Trafalgar Sq.. And in the identical yr, the BBC jumped in with a fee for the Cheltenham Pageant.

Work got here flooding his method and one notable fee that had clout got here from the Three Choirs Pageant who invited Rasch to write down a choral work to mark the centenary of the First World Conflict. He duly delivered a well-constructed 40-minute cantata entitled A Overseas Discipline, a thought-provoking piece merging Latin texts with poetry written by the Dymock poets (a literary group of the early twentieth century who made their properties close to the village of Dymock in Gloucestershire) together with works penned by Austro-German poets, Georg Trakl and Rainer Maria Rilke.

Bringing collectively a formidable array of artists headed by the South Korean-born soprano Yeree Suh and the well-loved London-born baritone Roderick Williams, A Overseas Discipline (which takes its title from Rupert Brooke’s well-known poem, The Soldier) additionally included the choristers of Worcester, Hereford, Gloucester and Chemnitz cathedrals in addition to the Three Choirs Pageant Refrain. The work premièred in Worcester Cathedral in July 2014 that includes the Philharmonia Orchestra below the baton of Baldur Brönnimann with the German première happening in Chemnitz a yr later.

Rasch’s first foray into opera, although, happened with Rotter primarily based on a play by East German dissident, Thomas Brasch, the state of affairs describing a person who tapped into the electrical present of historical past solely to be disconnected. Commissioned by Köln Opera, Rotter acquired its world première in February 2008 whereas a brief orchestral work, Excantare fruges, premièred by the Dresdner Sinfoniker below Olari Elts, duly adopted.

An enormous orchestral showpiece by Rasch emerged with Wouivres (a Celtic expression of a number of meanings) commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra which discovered nice favour and on the spot success at its world première in Chemnitz in October 2011 carried out by the Robert Schumann Philharmonie Chemnitz below Frank Beermann.

Come 2009, the Two Moors Pageant (Dartmoor and Exmoor) commissioned a few works from Rasch: a setting of Oskar Kokoschka’s poem Die Traumenden Knaben for the Pierrot Ensemble and a string quartet (the composer’s first) written for the Kuss Quartet and commissioned by Andreas Haefliger. The inspiration for the work got here from Fra Angelico’s portray ‘Noli me tangere’ (‘Contact me not’), a phrase, in accordance with St John, spoken by Jesus to Mary Magdalene when she recognised Him after His resurrection.

A yr later, Rasch’s groundbreaking second opera, The Duchess of Malfi, got here alongside. Primarily based on the Jacobean revenge tragedy of John Webster’s play of the identical title it was commissioned by English Nationwide Opera and the experimental theatre group Punchdrunk contributing a lot to ENO’s Viewers Growth Award from the Royal Philharmonic Society in 2011.

That includes German-born contralto, Claudia Huckle, because the Duchess, the opera, directed by Felix Barrett, founder/creative director of Punchdrunk, acquired its première, in fact, on the London Coliseum and was revived by Chemnitz Opera in 2013 whereas in the identical yr the song-cycle, Le Serpent Rouge, a BBC fee, was premièred by soprano Yeree Suh and the BBC Symphony Orchestra below André de Ridder.

A number of distinguished performers have engaged in Raush’s work corresponding to baritone Wolfgang Holzmair and cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton who premièred I see Phantoms at London’s Wigmore Corridor in 2012 and in September of the identical yr Rasch’s Mendelssohn Lieder orchestrations have been carried out by Matthias Goerne and the Neues Bachisches Collegium Musicum in Leipzig whereas 2014 noticed …in der Hülse von Schnee… a choral work primarily based on the writings of the German poet and thinker, Friedrich Hölderlin, carried out on the Kammermusiksaal (Philharmonie Berlin) by the RIAS Kammerchor performed by Hans-Christoph Rademann.

Getting up to the mark, Rasch’s 100-minute music-theatre piece in ten scenes Die andere Frau (The Different Girl) commissioned by Dresden Semperoper with a libretto by Helmut Krausser, primarily based on the biblical story of Abram and his spouse Sarai, acquired its première in January 2022. The state of affairs focuses on the love triangle of the surrogate mom, Hagar, who’s forged out after the delivery of Sarai’s son, Isaac.

The biblical story represents the emergence of the three monotheistic world religions: warfare and peace; lack of dwelling; love and tolerance. Rasch included within the work early Babylonian textual content fragments whereas opening a window into a very completely different musical tradition with passages written for the Iranian-born singer, Sussan Deyhim.

Torsten Rasch (Photograph from his web site)

Nevertheless, caught within the current, Torsten Rasch’s new work, Pataphor (lasting a mere 12 minutes) proved an astonishing and spirited piece of writing that made full use of the superb and gifted bunch of musicians who make up the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin who, below the baton of Vladimir Jurowski, performed so magnificently.

An lively and thrilling rush of timpani opens the work adopted by woodwind, most notably flutes, effervescent away in a sea of musical journey while a burst of vitality amplifies itself by some extremely excessive enjoying from the violins heard in opposition to a handful of staccato bass trombone bars punctuated by a beneficiant sway of percussive sounds seemingly coming from everywhere in the present.

And if maintaining one thing up his sleeve, Rasch provides an thrilling ending that basically hit the mark from my perspective by firing up the work with a run of syncopated jazz-related symphonic bars utilising a xylophone whereas the brass blazed a high-note path not too dissimilar to Stan Kenton’s Wall of Sound.

I discovered Pataphor such an attention-grabbing and thrilling piece. A superb and immersive work, I sincerely hope that different main orchestras of the world take it into their repertoire.

Trying forward, Rasch’s new music-theatre piece, Die wunderbaren Jahre (The Great Years), commissioned by Theater Regensburg, options three singers, a narrator and a chamber ensemble with the state of affairs (after the ebook by Reiner Kunze) analyzing the on a regular basis lifetime of younger individuals within the DDR. That’s one thing to look ahead to. I hope to be a member of the viewers.

Over time, many years actually, I’ve loved many live shows within the Konzerthaus am Gendarmenmarkt and I simply marvel what number of occasions Beethoven’s ‘Choral’ symphony (commissioned by the Philharmonic Society of London in 1817) has been carried out inside its hallowed partitions. Heaps, I ought to think about!

Nevertheless, this grand efficiency of Beethoven’s mighty, joyous and uplifting work by Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and the Rundfunkchor Berlin below the baton of Vladimir Jurowski would take some beating. And the way nicely the Rundfunkchor – regimentally lined above the orchestra with feminine and male voices in situ both facet of the organ console with the soloists within the center – effortlessly and joyously sang.

The anticipation of the fourth and final motion is, in fact, eagerly awaited however the ensuing three actions main up Beethoven’s Massive Sing supply a lot to the listener. As an example, the opening bars of the primary motion confirmed the fragile facet of Beethoven’s writing whereas the final motion provides a lot following the mushy and managed enjoying of the ‘adagio’ introducing the religious, serene, hymn-like rendition of the ‘Ode to Pleasure’ theme symbolizing hope, unity and fellowship delicately and sensitively carried out by the double-bass part whereas constructing as much as the highly effective ‘choral’ half that’s all people’s favorite!

The quartet of soloists comprising Estonian-born soprano Mirjam Mesak, Canadian-born mezzo-soprano Emily D’Angelo, American-born tenor Christopher Sokolowski and particularly the German-born bass Christof Fischesser – have been discovered on glowing kind.

The ‘Choral’ is a group effort to say the least and all people performed their half to the complete and did the work justice. At curtain-call, the packed home of the Konzerthaus supplied their approval of such a superb efficiency by wave upon wave of thunderous applause that really stamped the credentials on Beethoven’s lasting masterpiece which reaches out to so many individuals and extensively considered one of many supreme achievements within the historical past of music.

However quick rewind to Christmas Day 1989, the packed home on the Konzerthaus I wager was buzzing with pleasure, too, when Leonard Bernstein took to the rostrum to conduct the ‘Choral’ with ‘Freiheit’ (Freedom) changing ‘Freude’ (Pleasure) in a efficiency to have fun the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

Musical forces participating included the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Refrain, the Refrain of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra and members of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden and the Philharmonischer Kinderchor Dresden in addition to members of the Kirov Theatre Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic and Orchestre de Paris. The quartet of soloists comprised soprano June Anderson, mezzo-soprano Sarah Walker, tenor Klaus König and bass Jan-Hendrik Rootering.

Bernstein performed the ‘Choral’ one final time with soloists soprano Lucia Popp, mezzo-soprano Ute Trekel-Burckhardt, tenor Wiesław Ochman and bass Sergej Kopčák on the Prague Spring Pageant with the Czech Philharmonic and Prague Philharmonic Choir in June 1990. He died 4 months later.

The textual content, in fact, for the fourth (and final motion) is customized from ‘An die Freude’ (‘Ode to Pleasure’), a poem written by Friedrich Schiller in 1785 and revised in 1803 with extra textual content by Beethoven. Within the twentieth century, an instrumental association of the refrain was adopted by the Council of Europe (now the European Union) because the ‘Anthem of Europe’.

Composed between 1822 and 1824, the ‘Choral’ efficiently acquired its world première in Vienna at Theater am Kärntnertor on 7 Could 1824 with the likes of Franz Schubert, Carl Czerny and the Austrian chancellor, Klemens von Metternich, within the viewers.

Promoted by the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (Society of Buddies of Music in Vienna) based in 1812 by Beethoven’s pal, Joseph Sonnleithner, the performers comprised the home orchestra of the Kärntnertor with soprano Henriette Sontag, mezzo-soprano Caroline Unger, tenor Anton Haizinger and bass Joseph Seipelt. The live performance, nonetheless, opened with the overture Die Weihe des Hauses (The Consecration of the Home) adopted by three components of the Missa solemnis (Kyrie, Credo and Agnus Dei).

By the way, the British première of the ‘Choral’ came about on 21 March 1825 on the Argyll Rooms performed by Sir George Good with the choral half sung in Italian. By the way, the ‘Argyll’ was located on Little Argyll Road off Regent Road, the house of the Philharmonic Society of London from its inception in 1813 till 1830, the place Spohr, Liszt and Mendelssohn made their first appearances in England.

Apparently, Richard Wagner inaugurated the Bayreuth Pageant by conducting the ‘Choral’ on 13 August 1876 whereas Wilhelm Furtwängler performed it with the Bayreuth Pageant Orchestra on the pageant’s post-war reopening in 1951. Subsequently, the symphony has been carried out in Bayreuth in 1953, 1954, 1963 and 2001. A efficiency was deliberate for the 2020 Bayreuth season however cancelled due to the Covid pandemic. Nevertheless, the ‘Choral’ can be heard as soon as once more in Bayreuth’s famed Festspielhaus in 2026 in celebration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Bayreuth Pageant.

Silvesterkonzert – Artists of Circus Roncalli, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin performed by Paul Daniel – Tempodrom, Berlin (Photograph: Peter Adamik)

Nevertheless, in stark distinction to my thought-provoking New Yr’s Eve live performance, my New Yr’s Day affair was one thing fully completely different to say the least discovering me absorbing a potpourri of music and circus all wrapped up in a single massive festive parcel of discovery and magic courtesy of Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Circus Roncalli, a seasonal spotlight of Berlin’s cultural calendar since 2004.

Held within the 3500-seater round auditorium, the Tempodrom, shut by to Potsdamer Platz and the Brandenburg Gate, the present, a rip-roaring success, could I add, supplied a symbiosis of symphonic magnificence and glittering class coupled with a number of sensational circus acts whereas clarinettists Stephan Mörth and Thomas Holzmann grabbed the viewers’s consideration after they entered the ring to play their social gathering items.

Total, there have been 17 objects on the playlist which opened in a grand and imposing method with a superb rendering of Korngold’s overture to the 1939 American historic romantic movie, The Personal Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Bette Davis, Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland fictionalizing the historic relationship between Queen Elizabeth I and Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. An ideal ‘opener’ to the present fusing the artwork of classical music with the artwork of circus with the members of DSO below Paul Daniel discovered on nice kind.

The present took off circus clever, although, with the Sky Circus Troupe, based in Ulaanbaatar, capital of Mongolia, in 2012, who supplied velocity, precision and focus of their all-encompassing gymnastic show which was completely sensational, fast-paced and appropriately carried out to John Adams’ Quick Experience in a Quick Machine.

In stark distinction and slowing down the motion, the fragile and superb clowning deuce, Oriol and Gensi, the latter dressed as Pierrot, the white clown, pranced across the ring performing a number of novelty duets however one which ticked my field was their providing of a tuneful and catchy tune successfully utilising a small social gathering balloon and a concertina.

A musical improve got here by means of Gustav Holst’s The Planets (‘Mars’ and ‘Jupiter’) propelling the efficiency of the Serbat Troupe’s chairs-and-stairs balancing act whereas John Williams’ Theme from Jurassic Park accompanied Duo Shum’s Cyr Wheel show. An exquisite couple they have been elegantly attired in long-flowing white clothes and equally elegant spinning around the ring in a simple, high-calibre acrobatic efficiency.

By and huge circus is a household enterprise and Lili Paul-Roncalli, who has appeared on the well-known Dresden Opera Ball, the youngest baby of the Austrian circus director and co-founder of Circus Roncalli Bernhard Paul and the Italian artist, Eliana Larible-Paul, retains the household flag flying within the ring. She supplied the present a sensational contortionist act admirably and dramatically carried out to ‘Seguedille’, ‘Aragonaise’ and ‘Les toreadors’ from Bizet’s ever-popular opera, Carmen.

And the ‘adagio’ from Rachmaninov’s second symphony discovered nice favour with the viewers and contributed a lot to Duo Turkeev’s aerial act of precision and whole dedication to their artform whereas Liazeeds Roses, comprising a group of 4 completely radiant-looking women, took to the heights of the Tempodrom performing in true balletic type to Dvořák’s Slavonic Dance No.2 in E minor whereas Geraldine Philadelphia reached out to the Nineteenth-century Austrian-born composer, Joseph Hellmesberger, utilizing his invigorating and upbeat piece Satan’s Dance for her energetic and upbeat hoop juggling act.

Catch a fallen star, put it in your pocket! Extraordinary and gifted star-catcher, Daniel Rosenfeldt, did simply that. Juggling in his personal distinctive, hypnotic and aware method, he managed a number of luminous-white balls freely flying everywhere in the present to Hans Zimmer’s Run Free written for the film, Spirit – The Wild Mustang.

However one attraction that basically grabbed my consideration and one which I loved a lot fell to Oliver Polak, a first-class showman harbouring a lot theatrical attraction and charisma, who appropriately set his magical flower act to the ‘Waltz of the Flowers’ from Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker.

A voluminous act, in fact, bunch upon bunch of brightly-coloured spring-feathered flowers sprung out of a field that appeared too small to include them with the pièce de résistance of the present coming from a fairly woman with a fairly flower-printed gown arriving simply within the nick of time to finish the act on a sensational excessive to mammoth applause from a bamboozled and bewildered viewers. The place did she come from? That’s the key!

Neujahrskonzert: Mendelssohn: Paulus – RIAS Kammerchor Berlin, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin performed by Florian Helgath; Philharmonie Berlin (Photograph: Fabian Schellhorn)

A piece I’ve longed to listen to for years and years, Paulus, Mendelssohn’s first oratorio, just isn’t typically carried out within the UK these days however provides technique to his nice and provoking two-part choral masterpiece, Elijah. And this monumental and well-loved work acquired its first efficiency in England on Wednesday 26 August within the newly constructed Birmingham City Corridor to a 2,500-strong viewers. .

Performed by the composer, the efficiency was, by all accounts, triumphant and fashioned a part of the 1846 Birmingham Triennial Pageant who, by the way, shared their pageant with Leeds and Norwich whereas the opposite Triennial, the Three Choirs Pageant, rotates to this very day with the cathedral cities of Hereford, Gloucester and Worcester.

A few years later Elijah was heard on the Norfolk & Norwich Triennial Pageant in St Andrew’s Corridor proving a ‘winner’ all the best way and changing into the town’s hottest work receiving no fewer than 13 performances from its first Norwich outing main as much as 1930. Then again, St Paul, I found diving into the Triennial archives, acquired its first efficiency at St Andrew’s Corridor in 1881 adopted by an additional efficiency in 1893. And that was it, I’m afraid.

The libretto fell to Julius Schubring (additionally librettist of Elijah), a childhood pal of Mendelssohn and pastor of St John’s Church, Dessau. Many of the passages derive from the New Testomony (Acts of the Apostles) in addition to texts of chorales and hymns in a way after Bach’s mannequin. Composition began in 1834 and was accomplished in early 1836 with the work receiving its world première on 22 Could 1836 within the Tonhalle, Düsseldorf. The event marked the 18th version of the Decrease Rhenish Music Pageant.

Mendelssohn additionally performed the primary efficiency of Paulus to be heard in Leipzig within the Paulinerkirche on 16 March 1837 after which duly revised the work and on this remaining model it was carried out in English as St Paul receiving its UK première on 3 October 1836 in Liverpool in a translation by Mendelssohn’s bosom pal, Karl Klingermann.

Nevertheless, following the Düsseldorf première of Paulus, Mendelssohn travelled to Frankfurt to take the rostrum from the severely in poor health conductor, Johann Niklaus Schelble, who, in truth, commissioned the oratorio, for a efficiency by the celebrated Cäcilienchor (based in 1818) in Frankfurt’s Cäcilienverein on 4 Could 1836.

Throughout efficiency a really younger and engaging member of the soprano part of the refrain, Cécile Charlotte Sophie Jeanrenaud, caught, as if by magic, Mendelssohn’s eye. She was the youngest daughter of the French Huguenot minister August Jeanrenaud and his spouse Elisabeth Wilhelmine Jeanrenaud, née Souchay de la Duboissière. The magic labored and the couple duly turned engaged in September 1836 tying the knot on 28 March 1837 ten months after the primary efficiency of Paulus. The couple had 5 youngsters: Carl, Marie, Paul, Lili and Felix August.

Actually, Mendelssohn was carefully related to the Cäcilienchor (named, in fact, after the patron saint of music whose day falls on 22 November and is, certainly, Britten’s birthday) performing as its musical director for a few years whereas conducting them in historic performances of Bach’s St Matthew Ardour (1829) and the B minor Mass (1833), works the younger and enthusiastic Mendelssohn had found after they’d fallen into oblivion following the Bach’s loss of life in 1750. As a token of his admiration for the Cäcilienchor (who additionally gave the primary efficiency of the Christmas Oratorio in Frankfurt in 1858) Mendelssohn devoted a number of of his compositions to the choir together with that of Paulus.

Inescapably influenced by Beethoven (I suppose all Romantic composers have been), Mendelssohn wrote, although, in a mixture of classical and romantic kinds. He was terribly keen on Bach subsequently in Paulus’ fairly prolonged overture (later heard as a chorale) it incorporates to good impact Bach’s Lutheran setting of the well-loved chorale ‘Wachet auf! ruft uns die stimme’ (Awake, calls the voice to us) composed in 1731 for the twenty seventh Sunday after Trinity. Actually, Paulus is modelled on comparable traces to the magnificent choral works penned by Handel and Haydn whereas a number of recitatives, arias and chorales clearly punctuate the mighty and superb Ardour settings by Bach.

Neujahrskonzert: Mendelssohn: Paulus – RIAS Kammerchor Berlin, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin performed by Florian Helgath; Philharmonie Berlin (Photograph: Fabian Schellhorn)

Divided into two components Paulus provides 45 objects carried out over six telling scenes (Stoning of Stephen; Conversion and baptism of Saul (Paul); Mission of Paul and Barnabas; Persecution of Paul by his former fellow believers; Farewell of Paul from Ephesus; Martyrdom of Paul) describing the event of Saul (of Tarsus) to the apostle Paul.

Subsequently, the primary half describes Saul, a Pharisee, who persecuted followers of Christ, for example, the martyrdom of St Stephen by stoning and Saul’s persecution of Christians whereas the well-known arioso ‘However the Lord is aware of His personal’ foretells the miracle of Paul’s conversion to Christianity when travelling the street to Damascus from Jerusalem. This pivotal scene is adopted by the conversion of Paul, his baptism and ordination as a minister by Ananias.

The second half opens in a gently flowing and relaxed method witnessing Paul and Barnabas changing into ambassadors of the Church punctuated by one of many best-loved choruses of your complete oratorio ‘How pretty are the messengers’ whereas different distinctive passages depict the Jews tried entrapment of Paul, the miraculous therapeutic of a crippled man at Lystra and Paul’s farewell following his missionary work in Ephesus onward by boat to new adventures in Jerusalem.

Neujahrskonzert, Mendelssohn: Paulus – Johanna Winkel, Anke Vondung, Patrick Grahl, Samuel Hasselhorn, RIAS Kammerchor Berlin, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin performed by Florian Helgath; Philharmonie Berlin (Photograph: Fabian Schellhorn)

All through the work, the refrain comprising the ultra-professional RIAS Kammerchor and a refined German front-line of soloists comprising soprano Johanna Winkel, mezzo-soprano Anke Vondung, tenor Patrick Grahl and baritone Samuel Hasselhorn remark upon the story at each conceivable flip whereas the ladies’s refrain vividly representing the voice of Jesus within the recitative and refrain ‘Saul, why do you persecute me?’ was handsomely sung. Different components of the Scriptures are included throughout the work by passages taken from Timothy, Isaiah and St John’s Gospel.

Beneath German-born conductor, Florian Helgath, a former chorister of the Regensburger Domspatzen, the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin (Akamus), based in 1982, performed so magnificently. I can clearly see after this sensible efficiency of Paulus why Akamus has turn out to be recognised as one of many world’s main interval chamber ensembles.

The efficiency within the Philharmonie Berlin supplied me a lot not least by the truth that it fortified my Christian beliefs and refreshed my interior spirit but additionally proved a most becoming begin to the New Yr.

The final phrase, nonetheless, goes to Robert Schumann who affectionally wrote of Paulus: ‘Right here you’ll be impressed to religion and hope and be taught to like your individuals once more. Paulus is a piece of the purest type – one among peace and love.’ I couldn’t agree extra.

Neujahrskonzert, Mendelssohn: Paulus – Johanna Winkel, Anke Vondung, Patrick Grahl, Samuel Hasselhorn, RIAS Kammerchor Berlin, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin performed by Florian Helgath; Philharmonie Berlin (Photograph: Fabian Schellhorn)

New Yr’s Eve pre-concert (30 December): Torsten Rasch’s Pataphor; Beethoven’s Symphony no.9 in D minor (‘Choral’); Mirjam Mesak (soprano), Emily D’Angelo (mezzo-soprano), Christopher Sokolowski (tenor), Christof Fischesser (bass), Rundfunkchor Berlin, Benjamin Hartmann (refrain grasp), Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin performed by Vladimir Jurowski; Konzerthaus am Gendarmenmarkt, Berlin.

New Yr’s Eve live performance (Silvesterkonzert): Artists of Circus Roncalli, Stephan Mörth (clarinet), Thomas Holzmann (clarinet), Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin performed by Paul Daniel; Tempodrom, Berlin.

New Yr’s Day live performance (Neujahrskonzert): Mendelssohn’s Paulus: Johanna Winkel (soprano), Anke Vondung (mezzo-soprano), Patrick Grahl (tenor), Samuel Hasselhorn (baritone); RIAS Kammerchor Berlin, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin performed by Florian Helgath; Philharmonie Berlin.