Name: UN:ERHÖRT – Chamber Concert of the Hermann Levi Academy
Start: 2026-06-08T19:00:00
Location: Alte Pinakothek

Bayerisches Staatsorchester

Man and his destiny – that is the theme underlying the sounds of the 2nd Academy Concert 2025–26. Even the opening chords make it clear that Johannes Brahms describes his most personal fears and hopes in his first piano concerto. With this mammoth work in D minor, he shattered all the boundaries that the audience, sworn to classical balance, could have imagined at the premiere in 1859. Pianist Daniil Trifonov is the ideal interpreter like no other today; he makes his debut with the Bavarian State Orchestra with this concerto. For Pyotr Tchaikovsky, any music that did not aspire to "pure tonal play" was program music: music that speaks of emotional stirrings, in which experiences and encounters linger. For his Fourth Symphony, he hinted at what motivated him while composing it: "This is fate, that fatal power which prevents the desire for happiness from reaching its goal, which jealously watches to ensure that well-being and peace are not full and unclouded, which hangs like the sword of Damocles over the head and continually poisons the soul. This power is invincible, and one can never conquer it" – but one should not stop fighting it either. Kirill Petrenko conducts this work for the first time in Munich. The return of our former chief conductor is, as always, eagerly awaited.

2nd Academy Concert: Kirill Petrenko

Max-Joseph-Platz

Festive and contemplative music for Advent and Christmas OperaBrass brings the magic of the Christmas season to life with radiant sound and moving festivity.

Christmas with OperaBrass

St. Michael München

Under the direction of General Music Director Vladimir Jurowski, the Bavarian State Orchestra will perform three European works from the fin de siècle to the 1920s, which, in their contrasts, reflect the upheavals of the early 20th century. Sergei Rachmaninoff’s symphonic poem The Isle of the Dead , inspired by the haunting gloom of Arnold Böcklin’s painting of the same name, will be contrasted by Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major, with which Italian pianist Beatrice Rana will make her Bavarian State Opera debut. The concerto, perfectly formed in classicism, embodies the radiant optimism of the 1920s with elements of blues and jazz. Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra stands between the melancholy of the afterlife and the affirmation of life: first performed in 1896 at the end of the 19th century, this tone poem, rich in contrast and unresolved in its conflicts, already points the way to what is to come. The modernity of the composition, which was expected with suspicion and received with astonishment in its time, is demonstrated not least by its use in Stanley Kubrick's monumental film 2001: A Space Odyssey , which in turn points far into the future.

3rd Academy Concert: Vladimir Jurowski

Guest concert of the Bavarian State Orchestra

Queen Elisabeth Hall

Philharmonie Luxembourg

Cité de la Musique

Family Chamber Concert

Munich Residence

3rd Chamber Concert: Farewell to the Beautiful World

Allerheiligen-Hofkirche

His only violin concerto was the first large-scale piece that Pyotr Tchaikovsky began to compose anew after the catastrophe of his misguided marriage. But unlike his Fourth Symphony, also completed during this period (which is on the program of the second Academy Concert of the 2025–26 season), this work contains neither disastrous falls nor motifs of fate, and there is no plot that could be subsumed into the music. Nevertheless, it perhaps subliminally tells of the search for the right place in life, of the relationship of the individual to society. The very choice of the key of D major—the same as in Ludwig van Beethoven's Violin Concerto—signifies a connection to history, and his individual approach to symphonic form testifies to the composer's self-confidence. Leonidas Kavakos, who made his debut with the Bavarian State Orchestra a good ten years ago with Johannes Brahms's Violin Concerto, takes on the solo part. The musical director—for the first time ever at the Bavarian State Opera—is Markus Poschner, one of the most stylistically versatile and curious conductors of our time. With Beethoven's Eroica , he makes a debut that reassesses the work's political message for our times: a debut that raises high expectations.

4th Academy Concert: Markus Poschner

The Hermann Levi Academy introduces itself

UN:ERHÖRT – Chamber Concert of the Hermann Levi Academy

Alte Pinakothek

4th Chamber Concert: Musical Legacy

Concert by the Opera Studio of the Bavarian State Opera and the Hermann Levi Academy of the Bavarian State Orchestra

Passion Concert

The Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casada, principal guest conductor of the Teatro Real in Madrid, will be conducting the Bavarian State Orchestra for the first time and will present Hector Berlioz's orchestral songs Les Nuits d'été, Op. 7. Christian Gerhaher will perform the vocal part in this romantic, wistful song cycle, marked by farewells, which was never performed in its entirety during the composer's lifetime. He last appeared in this context exactly ten years ago, at the 5th Academy Concert in 2016 under the direction of Kirill Petrenko. The concert will then be followed by a work with a twenty-year history of composition: Johannes Brahms began drafts for a symphony as early as 1854, but he wrote doubtfully to Hermann Levi: "You have no idea how we feel when we always hear such a giant (meaning Beethoven) marching behind us." The composer was not satisfied with his own work until he was 43; Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68, was premiered in Karlsruhe in 1876 (the same year as Richard Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung in Bayreuth).