Waldbühne 1997: St. Petersburg White Night – with Mehta & Barenboim

There's always a mood of celebration when the Berlin Philharmonic plays its annual open-air concert at the Waldbühne – the spectacular amphitheatre nestled in the woods of West Berlin – and 1997's concert found Zubin Mehta conducting and Daniel Barenboim as soloist in Tchaikovsky's evergreen First Piano Concerto. That's the centrepiece of this "St Petersburg White Night" – an entire evening devoted to Russian music at its most tuneful and entertaining. With Mehta on sparkling form and the BPO enjoying every note, Glinka's breathless overture is the touchpaper that ignites an explosion of colour: works by Glinka, Mussorgsky, Prokofiev and Rimsky-Korsakov as well as music from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.

Soloist: 

Daniel Barenboim (Piano)

Ensemble: 

Berliner Philharmoniker

Conductor: 

Zubin Mehta