Vienna Philharmonic in Sarajevo June 28 2014

[Petrushka]

Live from Vijecnica National Library, Sarajevo
Presented by Sara Mohr-Pietsch

As part of Radio 3's Music in the Great War season we join together with broadcasters from across Europe for an historic event. One hundred years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Vienna Philharmonic performs in Sarajevo's historic Vijecnica National Library, joining forces with the Opera Choir of the National Theatre of Sarajevo for music from France, Germany and Austria in a tribute to peace and international friendship.

Haydn: Quartet in C, op. 76 Nr. 3 'Kaiserquartet': 2nd movement
Schubert: Symphony no.8 in B minor 'Unfinished'
Berg: Three orchestral pieces: No 3: March
Brahms: Song of Destiny, Op.54
Ravel: La valse

Note the time of this broadcast: 5pm

[Petrushka]

Does anyone know if this concert is being televised on European stations and streamed on the internet? The BBC is chock full of Wimbledon and World Cup, needless to say.

[slarty]

The concert, conducted by Welser-Möst, is being transmitted live on the 3SAT channel beginning at 18.15 Central European time. 17.15 UK.

[richardfinegold]

Let's hope that the driver of the Orchestra's bus knows his way around the city better than Franz Ferdinand's chauffeur did.

[pastoralguy]

Let's hope that the driver of the Orchestra's bus knows his way around the city better than Franz Ferdinand's chauffeur did.

Thanks for this prompt. I didn't know the background to this affair. Compelling reading.

[Radio64]

The concert, conducted by Welser-Möst, is being transmitted live on the 3SAT channel beginning at 18.15 Central European time. 17.15 UK.

This should be the link to the live streaming on 3sat ... http://www.3sat.de/mediathek/?mode=play&obj=44467

[Honoured Guest]

the Vienna Philharmonic performs in Sarajevo's historic Vijecnica National Library, joining forces with the Opera Choir of the National Theatre of Sarajevo for music from France, Germany and Austria in a tribute to peace and international friendship.

"peace and international friendship"!!!! Serbia seems not to be invited, which is perhaps not surprising in the circumstances. This Library is the rebuilt City Hall, bombed to destruction by Serbia in 1992. Lest we forget ...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/bosnia/10819836/Sarajevo-reopens-historic-city-hall-and-library-destroyed-in-war.html

[jayne lee wilson]

Doesn't anyone get Radio Times anymore? This concert is Live on Radio 3... almost certainly in better sound than anywhere else in Europe - don't know what 3SAT's bitrates are, but 320kbps AAC is very rare anywhere now...

But - sorry but it seems a bit of a dogsdinner to me, oddly-chosen excerpts and weary overfamiliars... just ONE movement from Berg's OP.6?! Parsimonious doesn't begin to describe it, especially in this context. Spiritual, never mind musical, generosity anyone?

Listening to programmes like this - well, when I used to - I tended to find my concentration turning to jelly long before the end... so I don't feel like being generous about it.

[verismissimo]

... But - sorry but it seems a bit of a dogsdinner to me, oddly-chosen excerpts and weary overfamiliars... just ONE movement from Berg's OP.6?! Parsimonious doesn't begin to describe it, especially in this context...

What my father-in-law would call a mish-mash...

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Doesn't anyone get Radio Times anymore? This concert is Live on Radio 3... almost certainly in better sound than anywhere else in Europe - don't know what 3SAT's bitrates are, but 320kbps AAC is very rare anywhere now...

I think the question was whether it was being televised.

[Flosshilde]

"peace and international friendship"!!!! Serbia seems not to be invited, which is perhaps not surprising in the circumstances. This Library is the rebuilt City Hall, bombed to destruction by Serbia in 1992. Lest we forget ...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ed-in-war.html

I do wonder what the point of it is, or the thinking - is it supposed to indicate that the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in the fom of Vienna, has forgiven the assasination?

[french frank]

It's primary aim, surely, is to be a sobering pan-European commemoration, rather than a concert for music-lovers.

(That was a reply to those commenting on the programme)

[Petrushka]

Doesn't anyone get Radio Times anymore? This concert is Live on Radio 3... almost certainly in better sound than anywhere else in Europe - don't know what 3SAT's bitrates are, but 320kbps AAC is very rare anywhere now...

But - sorry but it seems a bit of a dogsdinner to me, oddly-chosen excerpts and weary overfamiliars... just ONE movement from Berg's OP.6?! Parsimonious doesn't begin to describe it, especially in this context. Spiritual, never mind musical, generosity anyone?

Listening to programmes like this - well, when I used to - I tended to find my concentration turning to jelly long before the end... so I don't feel like being generous about it.

Afraid this was my view as well but the nature of the historic anniversary still makes it a must listen. Personally, I think a programme of the Berg Three Orchestral Pieces and Beethoven 9 would have been a good one. Or perhaps Mahler 6.

[Petrushka]

I do wonder what the point of it is, or the thinking - is it supposed to indicate that the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in the fom of Vienna, has forgiven the assasination?

The 100th anniversary of this most notorious date in 20th century history is surely worthy of commemoration and this is the rationale behind the concert, and, to a degree, the programme. Perhaps few events in history has ever set in train such momentous consequences as the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo that Sunday afternoon. The Archduke left the building where this concert takes place just before his murder.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQ4nyRtftiE

[jayne lee wilson]

Afraid this was my view as well but the nature of the historic anniversary still makes it a must listen. Personally, I think a programme of the Berg Three Orchestral Pieces and Beethoven 9 would have been a good one. Or perhaps Mahler 6.

...or a hands-across-Europe one of Berg OP.6 - ominous, nightmarish, appetite for destruction - and Magnard's 4th Symphony (1914, virtually contemporaneous with the Berg), with its message of Hope tinged with uncertainty, and written by one of WW1's most tragic creative victims...