Philharmonie Berlin

DSO, Ollikainen & Shaham at the Berlin Phil

A Soviet homecoming, a film theme everyone knows, a tomb for the drowned - and the modern symphony that converted me.

🎻 DSO Berlin / Eva Ollikainen / Gil Shahan
🎶 Prokofiev, Williams, Larcher
🏛️ Philharmonie Berlin
🗓️ 27.09.2026

Folks, you heard it here first: this might’ve been the concert that converted me to modern classical music. On the surface, the format was a familiar one: a grand classic symphony or solo concerto, a short audience banger, and then a modern piece that in a way mirrors the classic one. Usually, the modern piece gets played first - cynically, so people can't leave before it.

This concert put that formula on its head and started off with the headliner: Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2, followed with the immediately recognizable main theme from the movie Schindler's List by John Williams - and, after the intermission, closing with Thomas Larcher’s Symphony No. 2 Kenotaph.

For whatever reason, I didn’t quite connect with the Prokofiev. Perhaps 1930s compositions are already a hit and miss for me (I’m an old romantic, after all). The Schindler’s List theme was, as expected, a punch in the gut - anyone who’s seen the 1993 movie will know why. And yet, it was Kenotaph from 2015/16 that really resonated with me. The intensity of the percussion, the curious novelty of some of the sounds produced by the orchestra, the accordion, the way the piece somberly faded into silence. The verdict: my interest was genuinely piqued, and this was the first modern piece I’ve listened to again at home after the concert.

Thematically, the program curation was unexpectedly affecting as each piece answers to a grievous moment in history. Prokofiev composed his concerto just before returning to the Soviet Union after 18 years abroad - resorting to a musical language that would not draw attention from the state. Williams was initially hesitant to write the score for such an important story about the Holocaust but was convinced after all. And Larcher composed his Kenotaph - literally an empty tomb - as a real-time reaction to thousands of refugees drowning in the Mediterranean.

An aspect of classical concerts that I think gets overlooked too often: its capacity to actively comment on the world around us. On that note: happy International Day of Music.