| Berlin (7 August 2025) The Berliner Philharmoniker and their chief conductor Kirill Petrenko have dedicated their latest edition to the music of Arnold Schoenberg. Demonstrating the constant changes in the composer’s compositional style, it presents works from all of his creative phases, including Verklärte Nacht op. 4 in the 1943 version for string orchestra, the Chamber Symphony No. 1 op. 9, the Violin Concerto op. 36 with Patricia Kopatchinskaja as soloist and the Variations for Orchestra op. 31. Also featured is the rarely heard oratorio Die Jakobsleiter for soloists, choirs and orchestra with Wolfgang Koch (baritone), Daniel Behle (tenor), Wolfgang Ablinger-Sperrhacke (tenor), Johannes Martin Kränzle (baritone), Gyula Orendt (baritone), Stephan Rügamer (tenor), Nicola Beller Carbone (soprano), Liv Redpath and Jasmin Delfs (soprano) and the Rundfunkchor Berlin. The recordings were made between March 2019 and January 2024, in the anniversary year marking the 150th anniversary of Arnold Schoenberg’s birth. |
| In addition to the recordings on three CDs, the hardcover edition, designed by US artist Peter Halley, includes a Blu-ray disc containing concert videos of all the works and, as bonus content, the audio recording of Die Jakobsleiter in Pure Audio Dolby Atmos Studio quality. There is also a comprehensive accompanying book with in-depth essays by musicologists and Schoenberg experts Harvey Sachs and Martin Kaltenecker. The edition will be released on 19 September 2025 on the orchestra’s own label, Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings, and is available at berliner-philharmoniker-recordings.com and from selected specialist retailers. “With this edition we want to demonstrate that Schoenberg’s works are by no means purely intellectual (although extremely fascinating) constructs, and certainly not innovations for the sake of provocation,” write the orchestra’s two media representatives, Philipp Bohnen (violin) and Olaf Maninger (principal cellist), in the foreword to the edition. “Instead, our selection reveals what Anton Webern wrote about his teacher: ʻSchoenberg’s sensibility is of searing ardourʼ, his music rooted ʻentirely in the need for expressionʼ.” In January 1919, Verklärte Nacht became the first work by Arnold Schoenberg to appear in a Berliner Philharmoniker programme. This was followed by a number of Berlin premieres, such as the Gurrelieder in June 1923, and the world premiere of the Variations for Orchestra op. 31 under Wilhelm Furtwängler in January 1928. The regular inclusion of his works in the orchestra’s concerts to this day highlights the close relationship between the Berliner Philharmoniker and the works of Schoenberg. |
NEW ON CD/Blu-ray Disc: Berliner Philharmoniker · Kirill Petrenko · Arnold Schoenberg / to be released on 19 September 2025 on 3 CD / 1 Blu-ray Disc.
