User reviews

Philharmoniker is a typical German movie of the end of World War II. A story with love and music which will let the audience forget for a while the bombing of the cities. So far, I would not have screened the work till the end. What captivated me were the short sequences where one sees great German conductors of that time with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Reichsorchestra, as it was called during the war. One would regret not to see Furtwängler but there are plenty of documents where one can see and hear the master. It was the first time I saw Karl Böhm as he was rather young. The same for Eugen Jochum who was already a great specialist of Bruckner, not to mention Hans Knappertsbusch with Beethoven in a "Werkkonzert" (concert for the workers in a factory). The best surprise comes in the last minutes with Richard Strauss who is conducting one of his own works with a minimalist gesture. Those couple of minutes with such great artists were indeed the very best part of the movie.

Another interesting point is that one can see the "Philharmonie", the concert hall where the Berlin Philharmonic played till it was destroyed by bombs by the end of 1944, so very shortly after the movie.