Moscow's Bolshoi choir in Berlin : in Celebration of the Fatherland

Tugan Sokhiev is Russian, body and soul. As he was wearing in 2014, the musical Director of Moscow's Bolshoi theatre, he gave up his chief position at the German Symphony orchestra after only four years, despite the enormous success he had in Berlin. Because he considered it his Patriotic duty to help the largest Opera house in his home a new Shine.

So proud of Tugan Sokhiev is to be the Bolshoi, that he has now brought his choir to guest conduct the Berliner Philharmoniker. Not all of the 120 members, but only 80 of them – but this spark in Scharoun's fine-membered concert hall stunner, with an entirely unfamiliar. Here, the Berlin radio choir and the Rias chamber choir with sensitive interpretations of delight normally, with differentiated text interpretation and the sublime Pianissimo shades.

their Moscow colleagues a different, Yes antagonistic Aesthetics represented. To you it is all to Overwhelming. Sure, there were also moments are lush and flourishing splendor of Sound Forte in the Mezzo, but mostly her singing is a Demonstration of the sheer Phonstärke. Their voices cut through the room as high power spotlight dark winter night.

Philharmonic orchestra as an accompanying force

The perplexed at first, fascinated for a while. Finally, but the listener is feeling particularly buzzed. Because Tugan Sokhiev has consistently focused on power and Wealth, because he has selected three works in which the choir is always on the same type is required, namely as a powerful mass. In Alexander Borodin's "Prince Igor" is about a battle against the Muslim Turkic of the Kipchak, in the "Alexander Nevsky"cantata describes Sergei Prokofiev, such as the United Russian armed forces 1242 slaughter of the knights of the Teutonic order. And even in the single civilian piece of the Evening, Sergei Rachmaninoff's "spring", a deceived husband (with a steel baritone: Vasily Ladyuk) to take revenge on his wife the hatchet.

It takes a certain chutzpah to downgrade the Berlin Philharmonic to the accompanying troupe of an Opera choir. Ungrateful, Yes, quite silly, the tasks of the orchestra in Rachmaninov and Prokofiev. In the instrumental parts of the "Polovtsian dances" is rushing, the conductor and the musicians in such a way through the score, as he wanted to arrive as quickly as possible to the next vocal passage. It is then in the martial diction, the aim is to celebrate potentates, or, as in the case of "Alexander Nevsky" – to destroy the enemies of Russia and to celebrate the bravery of the heroes who perished in the war (pathetic: mezzo-soprano Agunda Kulaeva).

Tugan Sokhiev and the Berlin Philharmonic On the open stage

in the face of a sudden increase of the aggressiveness level of social discourse, in the face of nationalist hardening of all places and the diplomatic ice age between Russia and the West, it is surprising that the Berlin Philharmonic as a program meekly endure.