Albrecht Mayer

Albrecht Mayer, principal oboist with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra since 1992, also enjoys a prolific solo career. Internationally renowned for his beautiful sound, he has recorded extensively with musicians from all over the world.

In 2022 Albrecht Mayer’s autobiography Klangwunder: Wie die Kraft der Musik mich geheilt hat, co-authored with journalist Heidi Friedrich, was published in September 2022. It became a Spiegel best-seller. Now available in English translation as The Wonder of Sound: How the Power of Music Healed Me, Albrecht’s story is accessible to many more fans around the world.

Career

Albrecht Mayer’s earliest musical experiences were as a member of the cathedral choir in his home town of Bamberg and it is perhaps there that the warm, lyrical character of his oboe playing finds its roots. His playing repeatedly attracts the highest praise: critics speak of the ‘divine echoes’ of the ‘wonderful oboe’, or of Mayer elevating the oboe to an ‘instrument of seduction’.

Albrecht Mayer began his professional career in 1990 as principal oboist with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. He has held the same position with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra since 1992 and has simultaneously pursued his career as a soloist, and latterly as conductor. He is now one of the most sought-after oboists in the world. As a soloist, he has worked with great conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Sir Simon Rattle, and François-Xavier Roth. In 2007 he made his debut at the Carnegie Hall with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. He is also an enthusiastic chamber musician, collaborating with partners such as Vital Julian Frey, Hélène Grimaud, Leif Ove Andsnes, and Lars Vogt.

In 2006 Albrecht Mayer was awarded the Bamberg E.T.A. Hoffmann Culture Prize. In 2013 he was admitted to the Gramophone magazine’s ‘Hall of Fame’ and in addition received the Bavarian Culture Prize. He has won the ECHO Klassik award three times, twice as Instrumentalist of the Year, and his album Mozart won the Opus Klassik for Concert Recording of the Year 2022.

Pursuing a Solo Career

Always in search of new repertoire, Albrecht Mayer enjoys lending his oboe voice to works written for other instruments, with a particular fascination for the human voice, the most ‘natural’ of all instruments. His first Deutsche Grammophon album, Lieder ohne Worte (Bach transcriptions for oboe and orchestra) reached number 2 in the German classical music charts. The album New Seasons even entered the German pop charts, presenting Handel in a strikingly new light, with vocal lines from operas and oratorios being played on the oboe. Likewise his album Auf Mozarts Spuren with Claudio Abbado and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, topped the German classical music charts. Venetian Baroque composers were the subject of In Venedig. This was followed by the album Bach, featuring works by J.S. Bach for oboe, choir, and orchestra; the Drums ’n’ Chant project with Austrian percussionist Martin Grubinger; Bonjour Paris with works by Debussy, Ravel, Satie, Fauré, D’Indy, and Françaix; Schilflieder exploring treasures from the Romantic period; and Let It Snow! recorded with the King’s Singers.

In 2015 the album Lost and Found introduced four little-known oboe and cor anglais concertos of the Viennese Classical period, with Mayer as both soloist and conductor of the Kammerakademie Potsdam. On Tesori d’Italia (2017), Mayer collaborated with I Musici di Roma, performing Vivaldi’s popular oboe concerto in C major RV 450 alongside long-lost concertos by Giuseppe Sammartini, Domenico Elmi, and Giovanni Alberto Ristori. The album Longing for Paradise, released with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra under Jakub Hrůša features music for oboe and orchestra by Elgar, Strauss, Ravel, and Goossens. The works unite their composers’ experiences of loss and war — past, present and future — and a yearning for beauty in the face of tragedy.

The Mozart album, released in April 2021 and described as a ‘feast for the ears’ by the Wiener Zeitung, is an expression the oboist’s lifelong love for the works of the Salzburg composer. Mayer’s recording with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and harpsichordist Vital Julian Frey includes six arrangements for oboe, oboe d’amore, or cor anglais, as well as a specially commissioned completed version of the fragmentary Oboe Concerto in F major K.293 (416f). An expanded edition of Mozart which incorporates six additional pieces (including three transcriptions of arias from The Magic Flute), was released in November 2021.

In his latest album, Mayer dedicated his attention to the uniquely talented Bach family. Recorded with the Berliner Barock Solisten and Gottfried von der Goltz, it features works by Johann Sebastian, Johann Christoph, Carl Philipp Emanuel, and Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach. Bach Generations was released in August 2023. Recent highlights of his touring calendar include performances at the 2023 Hitzacker Music Week, where he concluded his tenure as artistic director; renditions of Peter Ruzicka’s Aulodie at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie Concert Hall with the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra under the composer’s baton; and a gala concert with the Gewandhaus Orchestra as part of the Leipzig festival ‘Bach300’, marking J.S. Bach’s appointment as Thomaskantor 300 years ago.

Further engagements have included a chamber music recital with friends at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2023 where they played works by Mozart, Britten, Goossens, and Moeran; a performance at the Seoul Arts Center with the Korean National Symphony Orchestra and David Reiland; and repertoire from Bach Generations in a series of concerts with the Berlin Barock Soloisten in Frankfurt, Hanover, Düsseldorf, Bremen, Hamburg, Cologne, Regensburg, Munich, and Berlin.