For the past month, signs in the U-Bahn stations and on outdoor billboards urged Berliners, ‘Ready, Set, Beethoven!’ The pink posters were nothing if not attention-grabbing. So ran the slogan for the Berlin Konzerthausorchester’s Beethoven Marathon, a 12-hour celebration of the composer that took place this Saturday as part of the ongoing festivities to welcome Iván Fischer, the orchestra’s new chief conductor.

In a city of seven symphony orchestras and three opera houses, the Konzerthausorchester, founded in 1952 in what was then East Berlin as the Berlin Sinfonie-Orchester, is one of the premier musical ensembles. Fischer, the Hungarian maestro best known for leading the Budapest Festival Orchestra, which he also helped found, explained that he wanted to bring audiences ‘nearer to Beethoven’s complex and many-sided life’s work: it is like an exhibition in a museum for which you would collect many works of an important artist,’ he told Gramophone. 

From 11am to 11pm, the orchestra’s musicians and guest artists performed 35 short programmes in the multiple halls of the Konzerthaus, the orchestra’s stately neo-classical home. The musical selections ran the gamut of Beethoven’s output, from piano sonatas to string quartets, lieder to concertos, and overtures to symphonies. Regular concert conventions were brushed aside and a democratic spirit prevailed: most concerts were open seating, with all tickets priced at €11. One exception was the wide selection of piano sonatas performed by conservatory students in the lounge-like confines of the Musikclub. This intimate section of the programme was free. And visitors were welcome to fortify themselves between concerts with a slice of Sachertorte in a Viennese café or avail themselves of a free 10-minute massage. 

Sebastian Nordmann, the orchestra’s intendant, said he was delighted to open the house to old and new audiences alike. ‘At the beginning, at 11am it’s not that easy to fill the hall, especially on a Saturday. But by 3pm, it’s working,’ he said after the jam-packed matinee performance of the Violin Concerto, with star soloist Isabelle Faust and the Dresdner Philharmonie led by Michael Sanderling. Nordmann added that variety was central to the programming approach: ‘We’re not just doing the famous pieces.’

Indeed, over the course of the day, audiences could hear the dramatic soprano aria ‘Ah! Perfido’ (sung by the captivating Swedish soprano Maria Bengtsson), the enigmatic late Spring Quartet, Op 131, or any number of chamber music works, including the Wind Sextet in E-flat, Op 71, the Septet in E-flat, Op 20 and a variety of string and wind trios performed by the musicians of the Konzerthausorchester.

The sense of occasion created by the marathon scheme had the ability to attract concertgoers beyond the regular subscribers. ‘We have a word in Berlin that I like a lot, Kulturnomad (cultural nomad): a specific group of people who are generally interested in culture,’ explained Nordmann. ‘In one week, they go from an exhibition to a classical concert to a Bruce Springsteen concert in a big stadium. To attract the Kulturnomaden, we need to have a special idea. They probably wouldn’t come to a normal subscription concert,’ he added, explaining that he and Fischer looked to the annual French music festival La Folle Journée in Nantes as a model. Indeed, the Nantes format, in which short classical music programmes are presented for a diverse audience, has been adapted in places as far afield as Warsaw, Rio and Tokyo.

However, it is a design that also can pose certain challenges, as Isabelle Faust explained backstage after her concert. ‘To play in one of those events is not so easy, because then suddenly you want to create something special and people are - the whole day - already full of music. So I find that quite difficult, not only for the performer but also for the audience.’ She needn’t have worried. The audience greeted her deeply-felt performance with thunderous applause.

While acknowledging this potential downside, Faust, a Berlin resident, said that it was rare to experience such a broad sampling of a composer’s output. ‘I think it’s an extreme luck to have all those different pieces from different periods in a day and have such a big overview of Beethoven’s oeuvre. His music also so diversified, so it can’t get boring.’  

Fischer, who led the grand finale when the orchestra regrouped at 8pm for Beethoven’s Fourth and Seventh Symphonies, plans to make this an annual tradition. And although building such an event requires a figure with ‘enough variety and an exciting personality’, he indicated that there was no shortage of contenders for the coming seasons. ‘I have another nine or 10 composers in mind for the future,’ he explained.


AJ Goldmann