Kirill Petrenko

Berliner Philharmoniker, Kirill Petrenko – Rachmaninoff: Symphonic Dances (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 35:55 minutes | 629 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings

The music of Rachmaninoff is of “enormous significance” to Kirill Petrenko. In it, he finds his “musical home”. His third edition together with the Berliner Philharmoniker is dedicated to the Russian composer, the 150th anniversary of whose birth was celebrated in 2023. It presents four key works: the Second Symphony, the Piano Concerto No. 2 and The Isle of the Dead – Rachmaninoff regularly performed them together until his emigration in 1917 – and the Symphonic Dances, which the composer wrote shortly before his death. As a tribute to Rachmaninoff, the recordings are released on 2 CDs and Blu-ray in a hardcover box with an accompanying book designed by photo artist Thomas Struth, and in-depth introductory texts.

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Berliner Philharmoniker, Kirill Petrenko – Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 51:06 minutes | 897 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings

“It is an amazing psychological drama” – that is how Kirill Petrenko, chief conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker, describes Dmitri Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony. The Ninth and Tenth also vividly reflect Shostakovich’s struggle with the Stalinist regime – and his self-assertion. Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings is now releasing the recordings of Symphonies 8–10 as the orchestra’s second major hardcover edition with Kirill Petrenko.

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Berliner Philharmoniker, Kirill Petrenko – Shostakovich: Symphony No. 9 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 26:03 minutes | 438 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings

The 9th Symphony in E-flat Major, Opus 70 by Dmitri Shostakovich was written in 1944 and 1945. It is a five-movement symphony with an opening movement in classical sonata form.

With his Ninth Symphony, the composer then made a surprising about-face, so that he had to remain silent as a symphonist until after Stalin’s death – in order to survive himself. Not only the tradition-heavy numbering of the Ninth, but also the fact that the war had been won led the people and officials of the Soviet Union to hope for a gigantic heroic celebration. Instead of redemption at the end of the war, Shostakovich saw the countless victims – and the approach of the next catastrophe. In the distancing tone of Viennese classicism and with grotesque cheerfulness, his Ninth therefore depicts a circus world that held up a distorting mirror to the regime.

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Berliner Philharmoniker & Kirill Petrenko – Shostakovich: Symphonies 8-10 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:18:07 minutes | 2,33 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Berliner Philharmoniker

Shostakovich is not a composer the Berlin Philharmonic has regularly recorded, so this new album of Symphonies Nos 8, 9 and 10 is warmly welcome. Taped with a limited audience during the Covid pandemic, the Philharmonic’s chief conductor Kirill Petrenko combines a riveting precision with expressive intensity in his interpretation of the expansive Eighth Symphony. The succinct Ninth has plenty of crisply sardonic woodwind commentary, as in the brilliantly played third movement while the Tenth packs a formidably powerful punch, especially in a highly charged account of the second movement “Allegro.” In truth, it’s doubtful if there are better played performances of any of these symphonies on record, and Petrenko’s consistently cogent view of the music compels attention.

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Berliner Philharmoniker & Kirill Petrenko – Shostakovich: Symphony No. 8 (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:00:58 minutes | 1,02 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings

“It is an amazing psychological drama” – that is how Kirill Petrenko, chief conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker, describes Dmitri Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony. The Ninth and Tenth also vividly reflect Shostakovich’s struggle with the Stalinist regime – and his self-assertion. Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings is now releasing the recordings of Symphonies 8–10 as the orchestra’s second major hardcover edition with Kirill Petrenko.

Musically, each of the three symphonies is a world of its own – what unites them is the desire for freedom: once whispered behind closed doors, once ironically distorted, once shouted out. Shostakovich’s Eighth presented a tragedy with a forced smile at authority craving for patriotic anthems. In his Ninth Symphony, the composer made a surprising about-face, so that he had to remain silent as a symphonist until after Stalin’s death – in order to survive.

Following his death, the Tenth immediately erupted from Shostakovich – after an eightyear creative break. Kirill Petrenko describes the work as the “greatest stroke of liberation in Shostakovich’s artistic output after the Fifth”.

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Berliner Philharmoniker, Kirill Petrenko – Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 (2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 44:03 minutes | 762 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

When Kirill Petrenko performed Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony with the Berliner Philharmoniker in March 2017, one critic was “stunned at how beautiful and breathtakingly exciting this music can be”. This first audio release of the orchestra and its new chief conductor reflects the whole sonority and intensity of the interpretation – and offers a taste of an exciting new beginning.
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Berliner Philharmoniker, Kirill Petrenko – Mahler: Symphony No. 6 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:17:23 minutes | 1,34 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

The edition brings together Berliner Philharmoniker recordings from the last ten years. It includes the nine completed symphonies and the Adagio of the Tenth, whose performance under the direction of Claudio Abbado on the 100th anniversary of Mahler’s death is one of the highlights. In addition to chief conductor Kirill Petrenko and his predecessor Sir Simon Rattle, the edition features other outstanding Mahler interpreters closely associated with the orchestra: Gustavo Dudamel, Bernard Haitink, Daniel Harding, Andris Nelsons and Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
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Berliner Philharmoniker, Kirill Petrenko – Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:01:52 minutes | 1,08 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Finally the time has come! For the first time, Kirill Petrenko will stand before the Berliner Philharmoniker as their new chief conductor. For his inaugural concert, he has chosen one of the greatest symphonic masterpieces of the 19th century: Ludwig van Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, a work in which almost out of nothing, from a simple fifth, the formidable musical tension Beethoven creates finds redemption and exaltation in the anthemic, visionary choral finale “Freude, schöner Götterfunken” (Joy, thou beauteous godly lightning).
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Berliner Philharmoniker, Kirill Petrenko – Schmidt: Symphony No. 4 – Stephan: Music for Orchestra (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 56:28 minutes | 973 MB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

In June 2015, the Berliner Philharmoniker elected Kirill Petrenko as their new chief conductor, he took up office a year ago. An exclusive edition now presents central recordings of this phase of anticipation and new beginnings. Performances of works by Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Franz Schmidt and Rudi Stephan reveal not only the first important programme directions, but also the exciting, intensive music-making in this partnership.
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