"For a long time it wasn't certain that we could do the tour," explains conductor Luigi Gaggero to the audience.

"Because we didn't know whether all the musicians would be able to leave the country in time." An Italian speaks in excellent German about his ensemble from Kyiv: That says a lot about this concert evening.

Classic is international and knows no borders.

To show that, the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra is currently on a European tour.

Eighty men and women from Kyiv who escaped the war for a few weeks.

At the top of the scroll of the six double basses are small Ukrainian flags.

The program includes composers who come from Ukraine or whose work is connected with the country or simply with the struggle for peace: Maxim Berezovsky, Ernest Chausson, Myroslav Skoryk and Borys Lyatoshynskyi.

Families with children attend the concert

As the hall fills up, Ukrainian speech can be heard everywhere.

Families with children are there, including small children, who will speak out during the concert.

The audience is younger than usual, many look at their cell phones, some ignore the mask requirement, which is strictly required in the Berlin Philharmonic (although this is no longer mandatory in Berlin).

Here and there an anorak lies over an armrest, a pink backpack hangs on a chair.

"Glory to Heros" is written on a young woman's T-shirt, in the national colors of Ukraine.

What you hear on this evening is excellent orchestral sound at an international level.

The fact that orchestras are international structures, made up of cosmopolitans, is no longer conceivable in the world of music: the Estonian Paavo Järvi has achieved great things with the Bremen Chamber Philharmonic, in Leipzig the Latvian Andris Nelsons sits in the wood-panelled Kapellmeisterzimmer of the Gewandhaus, and the Berliners Philharmonic will be conducted by Russian Kirill Petrenko (who has protested the war against Ukraine from day one).

But whether music itself can be political is at least debatable.

The concert with Berezovsky begins well-behaved, his symphony in C major could also have come from his contemporary Joseph Haydn.

Chausson's Poème for violin and orchestra that follows is demanding tonal painting, very difficult for the solo violin, which has to play long passages unaccompanied.

Crimea-born Diana Tishchenko, 31, struggles to get in, but then grasps the complex work and masters the devilish pace easily, snapping a hair of her bow.

The work's harmonies anticipate something of the late Ravel - a lovely indulgence in sound.

Elegiac passages suggest suffering and consolation

The main part of the concert is a symphony by Borys Lyatoshynskyj, the composer lived from 1894 to 1968, taught in Moscow and Kyiv.

He had to rewrite his 3rd symphony from 1951 because it was too harsh for the communist regime, which at the time was equated with critical.

The original version can be heard today: highly dramatic music, the timpanist has a lot to do, as do the trombones, the horns play with mutes, a rasping, unsettling sound.

Sometimes you hear a vague quote from Gustav Mahler, otherwise very free, modern music, eclectic and cool.

The alternation between dramatic and elegiac passages naturally suggests suffering and consolation.

At the behest of the Soviet authorities, the composer had to delete the motto “Peace will conquer war”.

Even then, the word “war” was forbidden.

You always have to listen to the political in the music, it's a matter of interpretation.

After the break, the conductor announces an addition to the programme, including a solo suite for flute by the Polish composer Włodzimierz Kotoński.

And specifically because the Poles support their neighboring country so much in this war.

And right at the end, as a second encore, comes the Ukrainian national anthem.

Everyone jumps up in the sold-out big hall, blue and yellow flags are rolled out.

comes the Ukrainian national anthem.

Everyone jumps up in the sold-out big hall, blue and yellow flags are rolled out.

comes the Ukrainian national anthem.

Everyone jumps up in the sold-out big hall, blue and yellow flags are rolled out.

It's a sad paradox that we only got to know the art and culture of Ukraine through the war, but there's a nice lesson from this: it suits us.

So the evening in the Berlin Philharmonie will be above all a happy, courageous self-assurance of international orchestral music.

Luigi Gaggero often conducts with his fists, throwing his arms forward in strong gestures – but of course there's nothing aggressive about it.

Lyatoshynskyj's symphony, which contains so much noise and din, ends in a kind of chorale, in a mood of hope.

"Free Ukraine!" screams a woman from the audience at the end, and the applause gets even louder.