Berlin Philharmonic/ Petrenko/ Hadelich review– flawless musical beauty
In their second Proms concert, the Berlin Phil brought Beethoven’s Violin Concerto (with Augustin Hadelich the virtuosic and breathtaking soloist), and a detailed and compelling take on Scriabin’s third symphony
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Flora Willson4 Sept 2026, 11:05 amUpdated 1h ago3 min readMusicMusic
Music — Flora Willson
Berlin Philharmonic/ Petrenko/ Hadelich review – flawless musical beauty
It’s the clarity that hits you first. The soft thuds of timpani that open Beethoven’s Violin Concerto landed from the back of the stage with the immediacy of taps on the shoulder, quietly urgent. The string sound was simultaneously luminous and translucent. Pizzicato bass-lines were shaped as if the main event and bubbled upwards through the rest of the texture. You’ll hear orchestral playing to match this on high-end studio recordings, of course, where the entire process can be geared to achieving such crystalline polish. And the BBC’s sound engineers can work miracles in real time on radio broadcasts of Proms performances. But to produce such lucidity live – particularly in the Royal Albert Hall, with its monumental bathroom acoustic – is another thing entirely.
For that, you need an orchestra of the calibre of the Berlin Philharmonic under its chief conductor Kirill Petrenko . But violinist Augustin Hadelich also served up his own brand of astonishingly flawless musical beauty as the soloist in the Beethoven. In the first movement, his rising octaves appeared to float out of the orchestra, his bowing inaudible – the kind of violin-playing, in fact, that appears to defy the laws of physics. The slow movement was a masterclass in bel canto, the third a biting, bouncing romp as both Hadelich and Petrenko pushed gleefully through the rondo theme. The apparent ease of Hadelich’s virtuosity – all his energy seemingly focused on phrasing and dialogue with the orchestra – was nothing short of breathtaking.
Where Beethoven’s Violin Concerto is conventional programming by any measure, Scriabin ’s Symphony No 3 in C minor, “The Divine Poem”, doesn’t get out much. That’s probably just as well, given its tendency towards late-Romantic colour saturation – the musical equivalent to eating an entire box of champagne truffles in a single sitting. But once again Petrenko eked out the details: glistening shimmers of violin, razor-edged tuba, bright flares of horn cutting through the sensuous haze. His movements were by turn angular and majestic – a touch of waltzing here, a vigorous jab towards a soloist there – as he conjured with sound, before finally allowing the vast orchestra to bloom into a magnificent closing apotheosis.
• Available on BBC Sounds until 12 October. The Proms continue until 12 September .
For that, you need an orchestra of the calibre of the Berlin Philharmonic under its chief conductor Kirill Petrenko . But violinist Augustin Hadelich also served up his own brand of astonishingly flawless musical beauty as the soloist in the Beethoven. In the first movement, his rising octaves appeared to float out of the orchestra, his bowing inaudible – the kind of violin-playing, in fact, that appears to defy the laws of physics. The slow movement was a masterclass in bel canto, the third a biting, bouncing romp as both Hadelich and Petrenko pushed gleefully through the rondo theme. The apparent ease of Hadelich’s virtuosity – all his energy seemingly focused on phrasing and dialogue with the orchestra – was nothing short of breathtaking.
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