Musical notes from Berlin 'Heaven on earth' and other German expressions

In this edition of Concert Hour, we listen to conductor Vladimir Jurowski who began his show in the Berlin festival last September with a palette of composers from Anton Webern to Alban Berg and Alfred Schnittke.

Your ticket to the German classical music festival scene: Concert Hour has the picks of the season — two hours of music updated regularly. Along with host Rick Fulker, the musicians themselves are on hand to give their insights into the events and the music.

Part one

Known as a virtuoso concert program architect, conductor Vladimir Jurowski opened the show by designing a musical time machine propelled by Webern, Berg and Schnittke.

Composer Anton Webern explained his rationale for adapting a ricercar— an elaborate composition popular in the late Baroque and early Renaissance periods—from Bach's "A Musical Offering" for orchestra."In my instrumentation, I want to show how the motifs are connected. And beyond that, of course, this hints at how I perceive the character of this piece," he said.

Composed in 1940 and not quite ten minutes long, the second piece of music in this edition is Webern's opus 30 Orchestral Variations, a dense and rich cosmos of reduction, as conductor Vladimir Jurowskidescribes it."While at work on it, Webern wrote a letter saying it was twenty minutes long. And the piece already existed! So this is essentially twenty of minutes

of content packed into ten minutes of music – and every miniscule event is of cosmic importance."

The third piece is an abridged version of Alban Berg's opera Wozzeck, wherewe hear Marie, the main female character, in three emotional states: euphoria; then recognizing her vulnerability, and finally, desperation. "Could this intensity leave anyone cold?" asks Anne Schwanewilms, the soprano playing the character."I had tears in my eyes."

Johann Sebastian Bach/Anton Webern

Fugue in six voices from A Musical Offering

Anton Webern

Orchestral variations, op. 30 Alban Berg

Three fragments from the opera Wozzeck for soprano, children's chorus and orchestra, op. 7

With the world this past year in the grips of the COVID-19 pandemic, another global challenge — the climate crisis — took a back seat in many people's minds. Still, among many of us, the pandemic heightened our awareness that "we are all in this

Performed by:

Anne Schwanewilms, soprano Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra

Vladimir Jurowski, conductor Recorded by Deutschlandfunk Kultur, Berlin (DLF) in the Berlin Philharmonie on September 5, 2020

Ludwig van Beethoven

Three Equals for four trombones, WoO 30

Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, op. 67, first movement

Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra

Performed by:

Vladimir Jurowski, conductor Recorded by Deutschlandfunk Kultur, Berlin (DLF) in the Berlin Philharmonie on September 11, 2020

Rebroadcasting rights: one broadcast before December 20, 2021

Part two

In this part, we move from together." The same, of course, is true about the environment: and our responsibility to work together to tackle the challenges of climate change and acknowledging our contribution to the problem.

Earth Day is April 22, with 1970s Soviet music by Alfred Schnittke to an unusual version of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5.

Alfred Schnittke wrote music for films and theater plays – and thenrecycled that material into very unique pieces that he called "polystylistic" and that gave him a reputation for being a musical architect. In his Concerto Grosso No. 1 of 1978,Schnittke stages a clash of the centuries, as the piece leaps through time in an array of styles. "Schnittkedoesn't quote melodies," says Vladimir Jurowski. "He quotes styles — and wraps them in a layer of irony. With Schnittke you never know: Does he mean it seriously or is this some kind of ironic exaggeration?"

What makes the performance of Beethoven's Fifth on this program unusual? "We're playing the third movement in its original form," says Vladimir Jurowski. "This is not how we're the motto this year being "restore our Earth." According to the website, "when life around the globe returns to normal, our world cannot return to businessas-usual.

To pay tribute to Mother Earth, for "Meet the Germans," used to hearing it. For the world premiere, Beethoven shortened it. He was afraid that the musicians wouldn't be able to manage the many repetitions. And it's been performed in the truncated form ever since. This symphony is magnificent because the most important things in it happen in the third and fourth movements. Of course, the first movement is strong, but it's only the kernel. You can only appreciate the true development if you hear the third and fourth movements in their original length of nearly twenty minutes."

Alfred Schnittke

Concerto grosso No. 1 for two violins, prepared piano and chamber orchestra

Performed by:

ErezOfer, violin

Nadine Contini, violin

Helen Collyer, harpsichord and piano

Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra

Vladimir Jurowski, conductor Recorded by Deutschlandfunk Kultur, Berlin (DLF) in the Berlin Philharmonie on September 5, 2020

Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, op. 67, 3rd and 4th movements Performed by:

Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra

Vladimir Jurowski, conductor Recorded by Deutschlandfunk Kultur, Berlin (DLF) in the Berlin Philharmonie on September 11, 2020

Rebroadcasting rights: one broadcast before December 20, 2021

The pandemic has been dominating headlines over the year, but our planet is also begging for attention. To honor Earth Day, here are a few "down-to-earth" idioms from the German language.

we look at German phrases using the word "earth."

Click through the gallery above to learn some.

You'll nd more from Meet the Germans on YouTube and at dw.com/MeettheGermans, as well as on Instagram.

Conductor Vladimir Jurowski