Phantoms: Scenes for Orchestra(s)

Program notes

About the Work

Phantoms is new, and these concerts are its first performances. It was commissioned by the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation from Brett Dean, who is the orchestra’s Composer in Residence for the 2026/27 season. The connection is an old one. Dean played the viola in this orchestra for fourteen years before leaving in 1999 to compose full time, and the orchestra says he likes to write pieces that are tailored to his former colleagues. Phantoms is the second of two scores commissioned for the residency. The first, Conversations with Schumann for soprano and orchestra, opened the season in September with the composer conducting.

The subtitle, Scenes for Orchestra(s), explains the title. The piece is written for orchestra and electronics, and according to Dean’s publisher, Boosey & Hawkes, the live Berliner Philharmoniker plays against an electronic “phantom” version of itself. Dean has worked on it with the Australian sound designer Bob Scott, who is credited in the programme with compositional assistance and sound design. The publisher’s announcement describes Scott as recording an electronic double of the orchestra, devising the sound design and directing the live sound projection in the hall. The stated aim is the illusion of a concerto for two orchestras, one of them present and one of them not.

The Philharmonie itself is part of the plan. Loudspeakers, and some of the live players, are to be placed around the auditorium, whose terraces surround the stage on every side, so that sound reaches the listener from many directions and the two orchestras can answer each other across the room.

No further description of the music had been published when this guide was written, and what follows relies on those two announcements, not on the score.

What to Listen For

The publisher says that Phantoms falls into four sections and that each of them, in the spirit of a concerto for orchestra, concentrates to some degree on a different family of instruments. The orchestra’s own description speaks of a wild journey through the instrumental sections that gives the musicians plenty of chances to show what they can do. So one way to follow the piece is to notice which group has the foreground at any moment, and when the spotlight moves on.

The other thing to listen for is where the sound is coming from. With an electronic double of the same orchestra in play, there may be moments when it is hard to say whether a phrase was played on the stage or came from the speakers, and others where the two are deliberately set apart. The seat you are in will shape what you hear more than it does in most concerts.