Deutsche Welle Festival Concerts

Series produced by DW - Deutsche Welle

Caption: DWFC host Cristina Burack, Credit: (c) Ayse Tasci/DW
Image by: (c) Ayse Tasci/DW 
DWFC host Cristina Burack 

Deutsche Welle Festival Concerts

DW: SERIES with live recordings of world-class performances from Germany.

The new season, which starts in October 2023, presents concerts from renowned German classical music festivals.

Broadcast rights allow PRX subscriber stations to use any or all of the programs in the series that have been already been published, or subscribe to the series to receive the files automatically each week.

DW Radio and PRX will release a new season of Deutsche Welle Festival Concerts – classical music made in Germany – in October 2023. Our host, Cristina Burack, will take you through the country's best classical music festivals for exciting, moving and diverse performances, with music ranging from the Baroque to the 21st century. The season's 13 episodes will visit such major musical events as the Bach Festival, Beethoven Festival, Mozart Festival and Bayreuth Festival. In addition, you'll hear directly from musicians, conductors and festival directors as they share exclusive behind-the-scenes insight into the pieces and performances.
The episodes will be released from October 2023 to December 2023. Each one lasts one hour and 58 minutes. The series offers ideal flexibility, as you can broadcast the entire season, creating a regular listening experience, or use episodes individually as needed.
In 2023, the city of Leipzig celebrated "300 years of Bach in Leipzig." In 1723, the famous composer Johann Sebastian Bach came to the Saxon city to take up the position of Thomaskantor, or music director, which he held until his death in 1750. He wrote many beautiful cantatas during his first year in the position. Today, the pieces are sung by choirs all over the world. These cantatas were the central attraction at the 2023 Bach Festival. In this season of DW Festival Concerts, we present the festival's opening concert, which features the St. Thomas Boys choir performing some of these beloved first-year cantatas. The selection includes favorites of renowned early music conductors Ton Koopman and Philippe Herreweghe.
We also bring you a French evening from the Rheingau Festival that includes works by Hector Berlioz, while the concert from the Mozart Festival in Würzburg is all about the Mozart and his idols, including Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach. The Bayreuth Festival episode delivers highlights from a new production of "Parsifal," Richard Wagner's last opera. Listeners will be treated to the unique sound of the Bayreuth Festival Theater, which was designed by Wagner himself.
The chamber music festival "Spannungen" ("Tensions"), in Heimbach, offers up intimate and moving music from Mozart to Ravel as part of a tribute to the festival's late founder.
Our season also includes multiple concerts from the Beethoven Festival in Bonn, the composer's birthplace. Conductor Paavo Järvi opens the multiweek event leading the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich in Dvořák's Symphony No. 9 ("From the New World") and his Cello Concerto op. 104, with the passionate Russian cellist Anastasia Kobekina as the soloist. Also on the program is Arthur Honegger's "Pacific 231." Another exiting episode features famous mandolin player Avi Avital and the New York string quartet Brooklyn Rider playing a selection of chamber music spanning some 300 years!
As long as the broadcasting rights remain available, you can also air programs from our 2022 season. These include a Mozart Festival concert featuring the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra and pianist Seong-Jin Cho performing Mozart's Piano Concerto in A Major. Or there's the concert from the 2022 Bach Festival that illuminated the similarities and differences between JS Bach's music and that of his son Carl Philipp Emanuel, who was widely popular in his time, even more so than his father! The new organist of the famous St. Thomas Church, Johannes Lang, also presented a delightfully varied selection of preludes, fugues and partitas by JS Bach and numerous other relatives. Episodes presenting Bach's St. John Passion and St. Mathew Passion are additionally available.
At the 2022 Beethoven Festival, the Budapest Festival Orchestra performed Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 ("Eroica") under the direction of Iván Fischer. German-American violinist Augustin Hadelich gave an expressive and emotional performance of Beethoven's Violin Concerto, while soprano Anna Prohaska delighted audiences with arias from Mozart's opera "The Marriage of Figaro."
Stations may subscribe to the full series via PRX SubAuto or download individual episodes.
The full list of all 13 episodes for the new season is available now.
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DW Radio and PRX will release a new season of Deutsche Welle Festival Concerts – classical music made in Germany – in October 2023. Our host, Cristina Burack, will take you through the country's best classical music festivals for exciting, moving and diverse performances, with music ranging from the Baroque to the 21st century. The season's 13 episodes will visit such major musical events as the Bach Festival, Beethoven Festival, Mozart Festival and Bayreuth Festival. In addition, you'll hear directly from musicians, conductors and festival directors as they share exclusive behind-the-scenes insight into the pieces and performances.The episodes will be released from October 2023 to December 2023. Each one lasts one hour and 58 minutes. The series offers ideal flexibility, as you can... Show full description


Additional Files

55 Pieces

Order by: Newest First | Oldest First
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You know you've composed something special when even your most vocal critics manage to find words of praise. Such was the case with Richard Wagner'...

  • Added: Dec 21, 2023
  • Length: 01:57:58
Caption: Camerata Köln
Stormy seas, stinky sheep, celebratory trumpet calls and a dying man's wavering emotions – the cantatas that Johann Sebastian Bach composed during ...

  • Added: Dec 13, 2023
  • Length: 01:57:58
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What's better than one magnificent chamber orchestra? Two, of course! The Mahler Chamber Orchestra (MCO) and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe (COE) ...

  • Added: Dec 06, 2023
  • Length: 01:57:59
Caption: Avi Avital
Journey across centuries, genres and culture with mandolinist Avi Avital and the Brooklyn Rider string quartet. Avital has brought the mandolin int...

  • Added: Nov 29, 2023
  • Length: 01:57:59
Caption: Kissingen, "Littmann Saal"
Looking for a slice of "la dolce vita"? Look no further than Kissinger Summer! The Bavarian music festival's 2023 season took Italy as its inspirat...

  • Added: Nov 22, 2023
  • Length: 01:58:27
Caption: "Wasserkraftwerk" (hydroelectric power station) in Heimbach
The community around the Heimbach "Spannungen" ("tensions") chamber music festival is so close-knit you could almost call it a family. So when fest...

  • Added: Nov 15, 2023
  • Length: 01:57:59
Caption: Kit Armstrong
It's Bach with a twist of Beethoven, and Beethoven with a dash of Bach: in this creative concert from the 2023 Beethoven Festival, pianist Kit Arms...

  • Added: Nov 08, 2023
  • Length: 01:57:58
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Who's afraid of the big, bad ninth symphony? Many composers, it would seem. The "curse of the ninth" – the superstition that a composer's ninth sym...

  • Added: Oct 31, 2023
  • Length: 01:57:59
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Stormy seas, stinky sheep, celebratory trumpet calls and a dying man's wavering emotions – the cantatas that Johann Sebastian Bach composed during ...

  • Added: Oct 25, 2023
  • Length: 01:57:59
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart influenced a whole generation of composers – and then some. But who influenced him? The opening concert of the 2023 Würzbur...

  • Added: Oct 18, 2023
  • Length: 01:57:58
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Did Antonín Dvořák, a Czech composer, write one of the most American-sounding pieces of classical music? What's certainly true is that he drew on u...

  • Added: Oct 05, 2023
  • Length: 01:57:58
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It was a moment that changed the course of music history: 300 years ago, in 1723, Johann Sebastian Bach moved to Leipzig to take up the position of...

  • Added: Oct 04, 2023
  • Length: 01:57:59
Caption: Eberbach Abbey
A feverish vacation. A fascinating city. The death of a loved one: The stories behind the pieces on the opening concert of the 2023 Rheingau Music ...

  • Added: Sep 27, 2023
  • Length: 01:58:00
Caption: St. Thomas Church Leipzig
It's one of Bach's finest, most inspiring compositions: the St. John Passion. He premiered it during his first year as music director of Leipzig's ...

  • Added: Mar 23, 2023
  • Length: 01:57:58
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When it comes to creative and impressive performances, the London-based Aurora Orchestra really stands out. In this concert from the 2022 Beethoven...

  • Added: Dec 15, 2022
  • Length: 01:57:58
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He's the wunderkind of the conducting world: Klaus Mäkelä. Though just in his mid-twenties, the Finnish conductor is slated to become chief conduct...

  • Added: Dec 14, 2022
  • Length: 01:57:59
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From floating melodies to earth-shaking chords, the panoply of sound that an organ can produce is truly impressive. You can hear the whole sonic sp...

  • Added: Dec 08, 2022
  • Length: 01:57:59
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Despite the Russian invasion, the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine is still making music, even if the young musicians are forced to do so outsid...

  • Added: Nov 30, 2022
  • Length: 01:57:58
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Classical music listeners often forget that long-familiar and frequently heard pieces were once totally novel – but that was precisely what was hig...

  • Added: Nov 23, 2022
  • Length: 01:57:59
Caption: Anna Prohaska
What unites the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Alban Berg? Plenty of love drama. Soprano Anna Prohaska, one of the most exciting young singer...

  • Added: Nov 16, 2022
  • Length: 01:57:59