Kirill Petrenko: “I want even more uniqueness” – the season opener of the Berliner Philharmoniker

2023-08-24 16:43:51

Little Kirill can already talk! Recently, in a small circle, it almost felt like ecstatic parenthood when Berlin’s Philharmoniker boss Kirill Petrenko, who is otherwise so resistant to interviews, really unpacked.

The fact that his no-talk policy, which he issued four years ago when he started as the successor to Siman Rattle, may seem a little inappropriate for a publicly funded institution with an extremely exemplary character, that may now have become clear to everyone involved.

And although the 51-year-old desk antistar with his initial snail shell attitude had worked two Corona seasons aimed at isolation, Petrenko now crawled very, very far out by his standards.

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For all those who knew him from before, when he actually only brought in honor in Berlin from 2002 to 2007 as the rising general music director of the Komische Oper, this shouldn’t come as a surprise. Because the Kluges speaking Petrenko is as eloquent as he is honest.

There is probably not a single other conductor of his quality who comes across as humane and modest. And you believe the humility when he says: “For me, the Berlin Philharmonic is the greatest task of my life. I would like to walk this path together with you as long as my body is still active and I can manage it physically and mentally – and as long as the orchestra still wants me to.” It has obviously paid off for both sides that they have an open-ended contract completed, unique in the classical music business.

The orchestra has a long-term desire for him

But what he has delivered so far is also unique. In the new 2023/24 season, too, with 123 concerts beginning this Friday before the orchestra continues on the traditional festival mini-tour to Salzburg and Lucerne, Petrenko has a much smaller presence in Berlin with 23 concerts than, for example, Simon Rattle (28 counting the tours), but in the long term that might be a blessing: this way, this capricious orchestra has more appetite for its man at the top.

You even treat yourself to a provocative motto. Not: “We are heroes”, but a “Heroes!?” with a question mark. So you want to question across the repertoire, how it is today with heroism. Discontinued or future model? Petrenko as boss is more of the latter. Especially when you look at his immensely eclectic repertoire.

For the next twelve months, instead of the four major Bs – Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner – he only has the slightly smaller Bartók, otherwise Petrenko is interested in Reger and Szymanowski, Hartman, Xenakis, Kurtág, Mussorsky, the composer in residence Jörg Widmann (who is now also conducting himself and will be making his orchestral debut).

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New generation of conductors

Wagner and Strauss, Mendelssohn and Ravel, Liszt and Smetana are then forgivingly added. And the “Elektra” is just Schönberg’s “Jakobsleiter”, but also continues his Strauss high flight.

Kirill Petrenko is choosy, apart from in Berlin and on tour he can almost only be heard with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. And again and again with the orchestra of his youth, the Vorarlberg Symphony Orchestra, where his father played and where he played a Mahler cycle up to the Eighth, in order to first learn the mighty mountains of sound himself.

But there is no need to be afraid, Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn as eminent sound education measures, Mahler for the great roar and also the great traditional repertoire will of course come back. Of course, this is also how you measure your Philharmoniker master. Petrenko is someone who has more self-doubt than he is really happy with all his heart. And doesn’t see himself and the orchestra where they want to be yet.

More uniqueness

“We first tested the potential and resources for each type of sound and design. Now is the time to build on that. Because with this orchestra you can achieve anything. There’s absolutely nothing they can’t or don’t want to do. And especially when it comes to sound, a lot is going in my direction. But I want to achieve even more distinctiveness and uniqueness.”

With 94 percent occupancy, the Berliner Philharmoniker are in a brilliant position. The Digital Concert Hall is buzzing like the bibliophile CD boxes with the boss. And so you can save yourself many fashionably hip decisions. Widmann and, as artist-in-residence, the Georgian violinist Lisa Batiashvili, that’s not original, but brilliant. The conducting debuts are also not very spectacular: Robin Ticciati from the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester finally dares, Hannu Lintu and Fabio Luisi were no longer on the list, then there are the early music specialist Riccardo Minasi and – as the only woman – Eun Sun Kim.

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Star-Oboist Albrecht Mayer

Without much fuss, the Philharmoniker have the tried and tested youth offers, and the boss is also involved in a family concert as well as an academic concert. Of course, there could be more female composers in the repertoire, but that’s also male-dominated motley, without hesitating with a craze for the pseudo-new for the premiere.

Petrenko, who was born in Omsk, finds the right, reserved words about Russia. And we definitely want to measure it against a short, simple sentence: “We have to relax a bit.”