Chamber music: Berlin Philharmonic Octet

At the turn of the 19th century, hardly anyone in Vienna still doubted Ludwig van Beethoven’s genius. However, some of his compositions were considered too radical or “bizarre”, as they said at the time. Beethoven was occasionally annoyed by the general popularity of his septet because it came at the expense of his more daring works. But that is no reason to doubt the beauty and originality of this composition, which is still popular today. On the one hand, it is in the tradition of serenade music for string and wind ensembles as an entertainment. On the other hand, Beethoven lends great weight to the genre, for example through slow introductions in the outer movements and a soulful adagio. The variations of the fourth movement, which are based on a folk theme, show a witty interplay of solo passages, the dialogue between instrumental groups, and orchestral sonority.

Beethoven’s septet was the model for Franz Schubert’s Octet – the piece that the Philharmonic Octet was founded to perform more than 70 years ago. Here, the ensemble presents a selection from the Moments musicaux, originally written for piano, in which Schubert combines folk-like charm and gentle melancholy. The arrangement comes from the eminent Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen, who compared Schubert’s miniatures to “poems”, as they are “short, precise and very poetic in expression”.

Wolfgang Rihm was also fascinated by the chamber music mixture of strings and wind instruments, as his sextet, which premiered in 2014, shows. Rihm died shortly before the start of his time as the Philharmoniker’s Composer in Residence in 2024/25, and the Philharmonic Octet performed his sextet against this backdrop in memory of one of the leading composers of our time.

Philharmonic Octet Berlin

Wenzel Fuchs

Stefan Schweigert

Stefan Dohr

Daishin Kashimoto

Romano Tommasini

Amihai Grosz

Christoph Igelbrink

Esko Laine