Barenboim, Dudamel & the Staatskapelle Berlin — Philharmonie Berlin, 2014

A classical music concert filmed at the Philharmonie Berlin in 2014, bringing together two towering figures of the international scene: pianist and conductor Daniel Barenboim at the keyboard, and Gustavo Dudamel conducting the Staatskapelle Berlin. The programme is Johannes Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15, a monumental work that took the composer five years to write — begun in 1854 in the shadow of Robert Schumann’s suicide attempt and premiered in 1859 in Hanover. First conceived as a sonata for two pianos, then as a symphony, this concerto of symphonic breadth sets piano and orchestra in dialogue with rare dramatic intensity. Barenboim, a benchmark interpreter of the German Romantic repertoire, delivers a reading of striking depth, carried by Dudamel’s precise, charismatic conducting. An essential live capture for lovers of piano and grand repertoire, in three movements — Maestoso, Adagio, Rondo — filmed in one of the world’s finest halls.