Over to Berlin via Paris this week for a concert featuring the legendary Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by the venerable Riccardo Chailly in music of Dmitri Shostakovitch, Nino Rota, Ottorino Respighi and Paul Lincke.

It was recorded on August 23rd 2011.

Here's the rundown:

Berlin : Chostakovitch, Rota, Respighi, Lincke

Dmitri Chostakovitch
Suite N°2 for Jazz Orchestra (1938)

Nino Rota (1911-1979)
La Strada, suite (1954) .

Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936)
Les Fontaines de Rome, Poème symphonique (1916)

Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936)
Les Pins de Rome, Poème symphonique (1924)

Dmitri Chostakovitch (1906-1975)
Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, Suite, Op. 29a (Ext.; 1930-1932)

Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936)
Belkis, reine de Saba, Danse guerrière (1930-1931)

Paul Lincke (1866-1946)
Berliner Luft (1899)

Orchestre Philharmonique de Berlin
Riccardo Chailly, Direction
Concert donné le 23 août 2011 à la Waldbühne de Berlin.

With a particularly excited audience and no less than three encores, the orchestra is in fine form making this an out-of-the-ordinary concert to go with your Anti-Road Rage Wednesday.

I try.

This week's concert comes via Radio Berlin and their weekly series of live and archived concerts from the Berlin Philharmonic. This one was recorded live on October 28th (last week) and features a rather adventuresome program of two works combined into one with The Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Sir Simon Rattle with soloists and the Berlin Radio Choir.

Featured is Arnold Schoenberg's Survivor Of Warsaw blending into a performance of Mahler's 2nd Symphony (Resurrection). Pretty intense stuff - and if you're familiar with either of them, both works together make for a pretty overwhelming experience. So I don't think our "Anti-Road Rage Wednesday" motto applies today. Still, it's an amazing performance with The Berlin Philharmonic in their typical top form and the audience is suitably blown-away.

Because the concert doesn't have breaks between the pieces, I had to do a break at the end of the first movement, where the audience gets to cough and the orchestra gets to tune. But the concert is complete. The announcements are in German but I've edited them down to cram everything on to two players.

Just below the fold are the notes (Google Translated and a bit dodgy, but you'll get the gist).

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