introspectica

Well, something a little different today…. You’ll notice I’ve given a link to the Berliner Philharmoniker’s Digital Concert Hall in my essentials section. If you love music, you will go and visit.

The concert hall allows you to watch Sir Simon Rattle and the Berlin Phil either live in concert or in archived recordings. The DCH also has extensive interviews with conductors and performers for most all of the performances.

You don’t even have to be Steve Schwarzman to afford a subscription: I subscribed last year for the full season and it was easily the best EUR149 I have ever spent. They also allow you to purchase a single concert – or even a single piece – for just EUR3.

For the record, the quality of the DCH is brilliant – hook your laptop up to your TV with an HDMI or DVI cable and make sure your home theater is on full blast; the experience is breathtaking.

Simon Rattle explains the move in a clip I’ve posted below. He actually makes some interesting comments on the technology and the philosophical underpinning of why they’re going digital. In short, he feels that art is going to be another service piped on demand into our homes – just like water, gas, electricity etc. Reflecting on it, I think he’s right: Apple TV has already convinced me to kill movie channels and physical DVD rentals at introspectica HQ.  Still, nothing will beat actually rolling up to a concert hall and being fully absorbed in the process.

You can view some highlights from last season at the BPO’s YouTube page.