Milestones and Memorials

For their final regular concert of the 2013/14 season, the Berlin Philharmonic paid tribute to two very different musicians. Richard Strauss, born 150 years ago this June, was honoured with a lucid performance of his late-career masterpiece Metamorphosen, while Daniel Barenboim – who made his debut with the Philharmonic in June of 1964 – celebrated his fifty-year association with the orchestra by appearing as soloist in Brahms’ D minor piano concerto. The concert, which also featured Ives’ The Unanswered Question, offered a pleasing balance between chamber-music clarity in the first half and full-orchestra romanticism in the second. The first half, in particular, succeeded not merely through the quality of its performances, but also through the fluid ingenuity of its stage-management. As the lights dimmed, a small group of string players…