Celebrating 150 Years of Dresdner Philharmonie!

Anniversary Concert live from the Kulturpalast Dresden.

The 29 November 1870 is considered the birth of the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra. On this day Dresden’s first concert hall was opened, and it was not financed by the court or the city, but by citizens who were organised in the so-called “Gewerbeverein”, a kind of chamber of commerce and industry of the 19th century.

Throughout its history, the Orchestra has often been threatened with liquidation: in 1923 during the first major economic crisis after the World War I, in 1933 when the Nazis came to power, and in 1944/45 after the closure of all concert halls and the bombing of the city. In the years around the Peaceful Revolution of 1989/90, the orchestra had to reorientate itself. To this day, the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra remains unparalleled in the German orchestral landscape in terms of loyalty of its audience.

On the 29th of November, we celebrate 150 Years Dresdner Philharmonie with a live concert from the 2017 reconstructed Kulturpalast, well-known all over the world for its excellent acoustic.

With works by Strauss and Schumann, the birthday concert is dedicated to two composers important for the orchestra and the city of Dresden. Strauss's work, which is based on Molière's satire 'Le bourgeois gentilhomme', has a very appropriate theme for the Philharmonic's birthday: The fact that the citizens of Dresden organised a concert life around 1870, which had previously only been common in aristocratic circles, is part of the founding history of the Dresdner Philharmonie.

Genre Orchestral Music
Recording location Kulturpalast Dresden
Recording date 29.11.2020
Duration 90'
Production Company EuroArts Music & Dresdner Philharmonie in collaboration with MDR
TV Director Jörg Thomas Mohr
Distribution TV EuroArts Music
Distribution VOD EuroArts Music
Orchestra / Band Dresdner Philharmonie
Conductor Marek Janowski
English title of music work Richard Strauss: Orchestra Suite “Der Bürger als Edelmann”; Franz Schubert: Symphony No. 9 “The Great” in C Major