A moveable classical music feast called Yellow Lounge is now so popular among hip young Berliners that some are being turned away from their city's coolest venues, reports Helen Pidd.
Berlin's Berghain Club is known for many things: its hardcore opening hours (no one arrives before 4am, and most stay until well past 4pm), its DJs (who play some of the best techno in Europe), and its relaxed attitude towards sex in public (walk past the booths on the ground floor and you're sure to see a bare bottom or 10).
What it is not known for is high art. But, on a grim Monday last month, this former power station in east Berlin played host to a rather different event: a classical music club night featuring the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. In front of a young crowd knocking back beer and cocktails, the musicians played Schumann's Violin Concerto and Mozart's JupiterSymphony. Before and after the set, DJs spun classical records as video artists projected edgy visuals on the screens.
The event was no one-off, but a regular club night called Yellow Lounge, which rotates between Berlin's coolest venues on the first Monday of each month. Like all the best happenings in the German capital, it retains an air of exclusivity by never advertising, nor even publicising, the event details in either of Berlin's listing magazines. Intriguingly, though, it almost always sells out.
Its aim, says organiser and DJ David Canisius, is "to bring classical music to a different audience".
I am outside Cookies, a see-and-be-seen club on Friedrichstrasse that is hosting the next Yellow Lounge night. A huge crowd of hip young things has gathered well before the doors are due to open at 9pm. Tourists coming out of the neighbouring Westin Hotel wonder what all the fuss is about.
"It's a classical rave," one man informs an elderly American couple, who nod politely and scuttle off towards the Brandenburg Gate.
When Cookies eventually opens for business, the crowd surges forward like teenagers at a boyband concert. Within half an hour, the club is full, and more than 100 would-be revellers have to go home disappointed.
"We always have to turn people away," says 38-year-old Canisius, after finishing his first DJ set, which starts with the second movement of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No 4 and includes a smidgin of the Schindler's Listsoundtrack, plus a choice slice of Shostakovich.
Canisius - who, as well as being a keen clubber and trained barman, is a violinist with the Deutsches Kammerorchester - runs the Yellow Lounge with the aim of taking his passion for classical music to unexpected places. In the past few years, the club has hosted some of Berlin's most memorable concerts: a saxophone quartet playing John Cage on the roof of a communist-era tower block overlooking Alexanderplatz, and a pool party on the Badeschiff, a boat-turned-swimming pool moored on the River Spree. Some of these events have involved stars: Sting played his lute in the Maria am Ostbahnhof club, Rufus Wainwright and Neil Tennant did classical DJ sets at Cookies, and performers from French pianist Helene Grimaud to the acclaimed New York-based Emerson String Quartet have appeared live.
In Cookies tonight, the live draw is British violinist Daniel Hope, accompanied by German pianist Sebastian Knauer and Norwegian percussionist Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen. Before the musicians take to what is normally the dancefloor, the assembled revellers - sporting the usual asymmetric haircuts and trendy plastic-rimmed glasses ubiquitous on Berlin's party scene - sit around chatting, snogging and nodding along to whatever Canisius pops on the decks. No one dances, though people have been known to twirl around the dancefloor if Canisius drops a waltz.
What is particularly enjoyable about Yellow Lounge is that it is not at all intimidating. You don't need to know anything about classical music to feel at home, and there is none of the snobbery associated with the genre. Canisius never gives you a "Duh! It's Mozart, dummy" look if you ask what he has just played, and the musicians tend to introduce each track with a non-patronising explanation of its importance. Canisius welcomes requests too, but only plays them "if the mood is right".
Hope, dressed in jeans, trainers and a black shirt, tells a funny story about Edvard Grieg before launching into the great Norwegian's Violin Sonata No 3. Later, enjoying a cold beer after a second encore - a lilting, improvised version of Kurt Weill's theme to The Threepenny Opera- he explains why he jumped at the chance to play Yellow Lounge.
"It has long been high on my wish-list because I love the opportunity to get close to the audience," he says. "There is this immediate exchange between the audience and the players. It's fantastic to play in a room full of young people who will listen to John Cage and [20th- century Greek composer] Xenakis."
He even admits to having played his 1769 Gagliano violin - worth about €330,000 - in the club, despite the risk of someone spilling beer on it.
Hope seems relaxed, but Canisius says some performers can be a little surprised to find themselves playing in such surroundings. He recalls the time he showed internationally renowned violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter to her dressing room in the club's boiler room.
"She loved it in the end," he says.
Yellow Lounge can charge the equivalent of just €6.50 for entry because it is backed by the record company, Universal. Canisius is free to play what he likes and book who he wants, but there do tend to be a lot of Universal acts on the bill (Hope is signed to Deutsche Grammophon, a Universal subsidiary). It was Deutsche Grammophon's Ruud de Sera who originally came up with the idea of a Yellow Lounge concert, putting on the first event back in February 2001.
"Universal could see that classical music needed to have the dust wiped off it," says Canisius. "The people who were into it were dying off. They needed a new approach to attract new fans. People like coming to Yellow Lounge because it isn't scary. It is cheap, there is no dress code, and nobody expects you to know anything about classical music."
Perhaps the clearest sign of Yellow Lounge's success is the fact it has spawned several imitators in Berlin. At Kuss Plus, for example, a string quartet recently played works by Haydn, John Dowland and Thomas Ades. Is Canisius worried? Far from it.
"The more people who listen to classical music, the better," he says.
At 1am, as Cookies begins to wind down, student Martina Heppmur and her friend, Vilma Niclas, a lawyer, sit around talking about how much they have enjoyed the evening. "It will stay with me for a long time," says Heppmur.
"It is something good to do at the start of the week," adds Niclas. "Mondays are usually so miserable."
- Guardian service
• See also www.yellowlounge.de
