Our Rachmaninoff concerts in Berlin 2025

Rachmaninoff's symphonies and piano concertos hit the landscape of classical music with an incredible force, leaving an impression that still resonates today. Our top ensembles dedicate themselves to the musical power of Rachmaninoff in concerts in Berlin, which make the tremendous energy of his compositions tangible again.

The next Rachmaninoff concerts of the ROC ensembles in Berlin can be found here from mid-July with the publication of the new season.

Rachmaninoff's unrest in life and work

Rachmaninoff's life was extremely eventful; despite his reluctance to travel, he became an emigrant who was never to see his Russian homeland again from 1917 onwards. This outward agitation was matched by an inner restlessness, which was responsible for self-doubt and several creative crises. The work of Rachmaninoff, the “last Romantic in music history”, certainly left its mark on this restlessness.

Rachmaninoff and his groundbreaking piano concertos

Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2 is one of the best-known and most-performed piano works of all time. Rightly so, one might say, as Rachmaninoff's compositional brilliance ensured that this piano concerto became an absolute masterpiece.

However, his three other piano concertos are also fantastic works that regularly amaze audiences. Rachmaninoff's 4th Piano Concerto is probably the least well-known, which may be due to the modernity of its sound. The 3rd Piano Concerto makes pianists sweat because of its immensely high technical demands.

And his 1st Piano Concerto, which Rachmaninoff composed at the tender age of 18 as the final piece of his time as a composition student, already points to the further path that would lead Rachmaninoff to the highest levels of classical music.

And then there is Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini, whose name is intended to emphasize the sketchy, throwaway nature of the piece - and in fact Rachmaninov only needed around six weeks to compose it - and which, although not a concerto in the true sense of the word, is a “variation work for piano and orchestra”, which brings it quite close to the classical piano concerto. This “concerto in one movement”, as Rachmaninov himself described it, is imbued with a musical genius that simply cannot be expressed in words.

Rachmaninoff concerts by the ROC in Berlin

Our four ROC ensembles dedicate themselves to Rachmaninoff's magnificent compositions in concerts in impressive Berlin concert halls such as the Philharmonie Berlin, in order to make Rachmaninoff's spirit audible to you and bring it to new life.