She is one of the most vital voices in contemporary music: the composer Unsuk Chin. Since 2005, the Berliner Philharmoniker has enjoyed a fruitful collaboration with the Korean-born composer, whose music fascinates with its sheer endless variety of sound creations. She was recently honoured with the prestigious Ernst von Siemens Music Prize. This edition presents outstanding recordings of Chin’s solo and orchestral works with Myung-Whun Chung, Daniel Harding, Sakari Oramo and Sir Simon Rattle.

Unsuk Chin’s music is a magical realm: new perspectives are constantly opening up, sometimes there are labyrinths of novel sounds and complex structures, then again moments of unearthly beauty. Her astonishing ingenuity, which permeates different cultural areas, lends each work an individual character. In doing so, the composer explores the limits of playing technique. All this makes the encounter with Chin’s music a ‘continuous adventure’ and an exciting journey of discovery for the Berliner Philharmoniker, which our edition would like to take you on.

The violin concerto performed by Christian Tetzlaff and Simon Rattle was inspired by Balinese gamelan music. Violin and orchestra merge here in part into a collective solo instrument. The cello concerto with soloist and idea generator Alban Gerhardt is of a completely different nature – ‘here the focus is on a rivalling tension between soloist and orchestra,’ says Chin. Her vocal scene Le silence des Sirènes is a vocal tightrope act. Soprano Barbara Hannigan performs the texts from Homer’s Odyssey and James Joyce’s Ulysses with dizzying virtuosity.

The title of the orchestral work Rocaná, conducted by Daniel Harding, comes from Sanskrit and means ‘space of light’. Chin is concerned here with the translation of an aesthetic experience from the visible into the audible. The Berliner Philharmoniker associate special memories with the performance of Chorós Chordón: Simon Rattle conducted the commissioned work on their last tour of China, Korea and Japan. No less memorable was the evening on which Chin’s piano concerto with Sunwook Kim and Sakari Oramo was performed: for the first time after a break due to the pandemic, the orchestra was able to play in front of an audience in the main hall of the Philharmonie Berlin.

In addition to the recordings on a Blu-ray and two CDs as well as a bonus film, the hardcover edition offers an attractively designed accompanying book with moiré effect art by Takahiro Kurashima. Introductions to the works are supplemented by a detailed essay on the composer and her oeuvre.

Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 1
Sir Simon Rattle, Conductor
Christian Tetzlaff, violin

Concerto for violoncello and orchestra
Myung-Whun Chung, Conductor
Alban Gerhardt, Violoncello

Le silence des Sirènes
Sir Simon Rattle, Conductor
Barbara Hannigan, Soprano

Chorós Chordón
Sir Simon Rattle, Conductor

Concerto for piano and orchestra
Sakari Oramo, conductor
Sunwook Kim, piano

Rocaná
Daniel Harding, Conductor