Pascal Dusapin (born 1955)
Friday, September 19, 2025
Berliner Philharmonie, Herbert-von-Karajan-Straße, Berlin
Three weeks have passed, a tour has happened, and the Berliner Philharmoniker has once again welcomed F-X Roth, and now Kirill Petrenko was returning to the season-opening Brahms and Zimmermann, replacing Schumann’s Manfred Overture with Pascal Dusapin’s Exeo (2001) – exit, escape, depart – the fifth of his seven Solos for orchestra (there’s the same number for piano), all recorded by Pascal Rophé and Orchestre Philharmonique Liège for the Naïve label. Exeo is strident and incident-packed – intense, suggestive of tragedy if also somewhere away from Planet Earth, as projected by high-lying violins underpinned by sonorous ballast from basses, trombones and tuba, and it’s worth noting that Dusapin does without any percussion, no timpani, nothing ‘kitchen’. Even at fifteen minutes, Exeo is somewhat unvaried in tempo and gesture in spite of this excellent performance, although it would be interesting to appreciate Exeo integrated into the seven-part Solos cycle.
It was good to hear the Zimmermann again, an inventive piece with Albrecht Mayer a total master of the busy solo part and enjoying unstinting support from colleagues. As before, there was an extra, a movement from Bach’s Cantata 21, Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis, wonderfully duetted with concertmaster Noah Bendix-Balgley. The Brahms was the surprise of the evening, somewhat different to previously – the opening more arresting, the first movement of greater emotional urgency (which doesn’t mean faster), with less sagging here and in the second movement, and with an overarching sense that a momentous conclusion would be reached; cue the Finale, then – maybe even more attacca than previously – which journeyed purposefully goal-wards, the much-anticipated conclusion duly delivered by staying in tempo, this time, during the triumphant coda, avoiding motto blatancy, Petrenko totally immersed in the music, living every striving note, the ultimate chord ringing out proudly: BRAHMS. Rather fascinating that KP should make these amendments. Antiphonal violins were retained.