Dietmar Hiller, former dramaturg and now archivist at the Konzerthaus Berlin, warmly recommends a special pre-Easter concert on April 8:

“The St. Matthew Passion is something of an 'opus perfectum' in Johann Sebastian Bach's oeuvre.  Bach performed it for the first time on Good Friday 1727 - it thus marks the end of a productive phase in which, within just four years, Bach had compiled a church music repertoire of several cantata cycles and the two large-scale Passions according to St. John and St. Matthew, to which he then only had to add individual works when the cycles were performed again. In 1736, Bach also returned to the St. Matthew Passion, reworked and revised the work and created a new score and new parts. This fair copy score, whose Evangelist text is particularly emphasized by the use of red ink, is one of the greatest treasures in the music collection of the Berlin State Library of Prussian Cultural Heritage. The original parts also found their way to the Berlin library, which now has the world's largest collection of Bach autographs. The performance of this work by the RIAS Kammerchor and the Akademie für Alte Musik under the direction of Justin Doyle adds another aspect to Bach's ‘opus perfectum’: Bach was able to rely on such perfect performers in Leipzig with the Thomaner and an ad hoc ensemble of town pipers and students. We can therefore look forward to a not only 'perfect' but also moving and gripping performance of this work, which will of course be based on the performance material of the New Bach Edition based on the original sources!”

Violist Ernst-Martin Schmidt has several reasons to look forward to orchestra's concert with Iván Fischer on April 11 & 13, which includes works by Hindemith, Weill, Eisler and Schulhoff:

“Many of the pieces I particularly like were written in the first third of the 20th century. I feel completely at home there. It's a journey through time where I always think, yes, this is a path that could have been continued and then stopped abruptly. In this Iván Fischer program, I am extremely excited about our soloist Lawrence Power with his wonderful tone and how he will shape the viola's grand entrance at the beginning of Hindemith's 'Schwanendreher'. For me, this opening with its clair obscur from C major to G minor within the very first bar is a stroke of genius by the composer. The second movement, which I particularly love, is an intimate dialog between harp and solo viola. Hindemith shows himself from a side there that one would not immediately attribute to him - heartfelt and with a deep soul.”

Linda Steiner from our programme department has a  tip for Good Friday, which is April 18 this year:

“Easter is coming soon - I've been working with my colleagues for a few weeks to put on a very special concert to mark the occasion. A reading by Navid Kermani from his great book ‘Wonder beyond belief’ (in German) in combination with a performance of Haydn's ‘Die sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers am Kreuze’ with the fantastic RIAS Kammerchor, great soloists and our Konzerthausorchester conducted by Justin Doyle. Lighting, sound, screen, image projection, props, stage set-up - all the threads have to be brought together and I have a lot to do with that. But everything is guaranteed to be ready on Good Friday and I hope you'll be sitting in your favorite seat with us then!”