1994 Europakonzert from Meiningen with Claudio Abbado and Daniel Barenboim
Claudio Abbado and Daniel Barenboim, although friends since their student days and long-time artistic neighbours in Berlin, rarely performed together. The 1994 Europakonzert documents one of these rare occasions with a performance of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 – in the beautifully restored Meiningen Theatre, where Hans von Bülow once worked as kapellmeister before laying the foundations for the orchestra’s international fame as the first chief conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker.
It was in Meiningen that Hans von Bülow worked from 1880 to 1885 – an excellent conductor, who formed the Meiningen Court Orchestra into an elite orchestra through uncompromising rehearsals. He employed the methods he developed here when he became the first chief conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker in 1887, creating the basis of the orchestra’s international reputation. This Europakonzert under the baton of Claudio Abbado was in a sense a tribute to Hans von Bülow, the centenary of whose death was celebrated in 1994.
Johannes Brahms also worked closely with the Meiningen orchestra as a conductor, and Hans von Bülow was also one of his greatest supporters. The Europakonzert featured Brahms’s Second Symphony: on the surface a sunny work, but with darkly disturbing undertones. This Janus-like character is also evident in this interpretation by the Berliner Philharmoniker and Claudio Abbado, described by the Berliner Zeitung as “ravishingly elegant with startling rumbling”.
Berliner Philharmoniker
Claudio Abbado
Daniel Barenboim
© 1994 EuroArts Music International
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