Inside the Berlin Philharmonic’s Digital Concert Hall

As it journeys towards its 140th anniversary in 2022, the status of the Berlin Philharmonic within the classical music world is more assured than ever.

With Kirill Petrenko shortly to assume principal conductor duties after a successful tenure under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle, the orchestra invariably vies for top position in polls of the world’s greatest ensembles alongside the likes of the Amsterdam-based Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra.

Given the Berlin Phil’s formidable reputation it is not surprising that the bar was set very high when the technical team began to develop the orchestra’s online video presence in the early 2000s.

Initial thoughts about short-form content to give the orchestra a presence on platforms such as YouTube swiftly gave way to a rather more extensive vision that would ultimately see all of the orchestra’s 40 or so annual performances at its home base – the Philharmonie – be made available for live and on-demand viewing, along with coverage of selected ‘away fixtures’ in cities such as Lausanne and Salzburg.

What’s more, the performances would be delivered in the best quality available at any given time. “In 2006 we decided to set up the whole project in HD, which…