From Berlin With Love: The Philharmonie Berlin
Dear Friend,
Thursday evening, 27 February 2025, was one of those typical end of the week evenings. I was tired, it was drizzling, and since I live in Berlin, it was dark. Very dark. Not the most inspiring evening to leave the house, but as I was running into the Phiharmonie Berlin a few minutes before pianist Mao Fujita’s was about to start, I was getting excited. The Philarmonie is right next to the Tiergarten, a large park in the centre of Berlin. With the park stretching out in total darkness to my left, the odd structure of the warmly lit Philharmonie looked like a welcoming yellow ship, beckoning me to enter. The Phiharmonie is legendary for its accoustics, but from the outside, it looks like a strange assortment of angles and curves. The façade of the building is yellow, and looks nicer lit at night than in broad daylight. Building the Philharmonie in the early 1960s, architect Hans Scharoun planned the building from the inside out and without a formal, symmetrical outside “corset.” The somewhat anarchic result was at first controversial, but is now considered an important example of “organic building.”
There are two concert halls inside the Philharmonie, the Great Hall and the Kammermusiksaal (chamber music hall) for smaller concerts such as chamber music or solo recitals. The different staircases are labyrinthine, so unless you know the Phiharmonie well, don’t show up just five minutes before the concert like me.
Both in the Great Hall and in the Kammermusiksaal, the stage is placed at the centre, surrounded by the audience from all sides. Scharoun wanted to create a space of shared experience for the orchestra and its audience, and it definitely works.
Luckily for me, even though the doors to the concert hall closed on time, it took a few more minutes than usual until the concert started, allowing me to take a look at the audience. Whenever I go to a concert in Berlin, I wonder why people often claim that only old people go to classical music concerts. My fellow last-minute sprinters on the staircase had been a father and his elementary school age daughter. Looking around, I saw the usual mix of young couples out on a date, elderly couples, students in their twenties, and all ages in between. Next to me was a Japanese student reading a book in English about mathematics until the last moment, while across the hall, two young men stood out with their edgy all-black clothes, statement glasses and chunky silver rings.
Mao Fujita walked into the hushed silence, crossing the threshold between backstage and the stage. He walked briskly and without attitude to the Steinway grand piano standing at the centre. Dressed in black trousers and a loose, silky black shirt with a mandarin colar, he placed a tiny, neatly roled up green towel at a strategic (non-sound impeding) location inside the Steinway grand piano, took his seat, gently brushed over a few of the white keys with his right hand – and started to play Frédéric Chopin’s 24 Préludes op. 28.
There is something particularly suspenseful about the moment when a single performer hits the first note. When there is an orchestra, there is a more gradual transition between your everyday life and the joint experience of a live performance as the orchestra tunes their instruments and the conductor takes his or her stand. With a solo performer, it’s up to the performer to take the audience into their own musical world with the first note played. Striking the first note, Mao Fujita gently invited me to join his journey across the different emotional landscapes of those 24 Chopin préludes, one for each major and minor key of the circle of fifths. It was magical.
During the intermission, if you fancy trying Pretzels that have been injected with salty butter, Berlin is the place. If you don’t like butter – like me – stay clear of the Pretzels, and opt for falafel with hummous or a chocolate chip cookie instead.
After the intermission, Mao first entertained us with Mozart’s variations on the French song “Ah, vous dirais-je, Maman” - now better known as “Twinkle, twinkle little star” – before taking the audience onto another extaordinary ride with Ludwig van Beethoven’s “32 Variations on an Original Theme in C minor” and his piano sonata op. 57 in F minor “Appassionata” full of contrasting emotions.
As the audience exploded into applause, Mao Fujita acknowledged our gratitude with a modest but happy smile, a few unpretentious bows and three encores, giving the distinct impression that he preferred sharing his music with his audience to accepting their ovations. Clutching his little green towel between his hands folded above his chest, he took a last quick bow, and crossed back from the stage to backstage, leaving me to return elated to reality, and the Berlin drizzle.
From Berlin with love,
Christina