If you can take time to travel in February--and can put up with the weather--you can enjoy deep discounts on airfare and hotels, as well as catch the main concert season in Berlin. My wife and I are here for a week, visiting museums by day and music venues by night. These days you can even select seat locations from websites of the Philharmonic and the opera companies and have them in your mailbox in four days or less, even in the middle of the U.S. I was able to order tickets for four events in Berlin and Paris less than two weeks in advance. To be sure some choices are sold out. In addition, I was able to buy ballet tickets on the day of performance at the Staatsoper (Barenboim,s house, on Unter den Linden, near our hotel). In fulfillment of a longstanding wish, I heard the Berlin Philharmonic in the Philharmonie Friday evening. Donald Runnicles conducted. Leonidas Kovakas soloed in the Brahms Violin Concerto and in Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony the Danish baritone Bo Skovhus and American soprano Christine Brewer soloed. Our seats were in the second row near the first violins and the soloists. Ordinarily I prefer to look down at the whole orchestra but, as it happened, I had a wonderful opportunity to watch the conductor's signals and violinist's bowing at close range and to get the most out of Kovakas' pianissimos. The Brahms was superb. The hall helped, of course, but I have never heard such sweet tone from a violin section nor such quietude achieved by a solo violinist. Kovakas has a fine recording of the two verions of the Sibelius concerto with Osmo Vanska but he surpassed any expectations on this occasion. He went from the utmost quiet in some passages to a full rollicking bounce in the finale. At the end he was embraced, not only by the conductor, but by the concertmaster and assistant concertmaster as well--something I have never seen before anywhere. After only one or two recalls Runnicles positively blocked the solois, who seemed both exhausted and a bit appalled at the prospect of playing another note, from exiting. The encore he played began extremely slowly and quietly but built up to doublestopping plus pizzicato at the same time. I have no idea what it was, but it seemed reasonably recent. During the concerto, Runnicles was always attentive to the soloist and showed courtesy to the orchestra in more ways than one. His beat is very supple. I have never seen or har Runnicles before but I liked him quite a lot. Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony is not a work I know well, though I have a recording of it. Zemlinskz was a friend of both Mahler and Schoenberg. The Nazis declared his work degenerate--Entartete, along with much other post-romantic and early modern music. Scored for large orchestra and two vocalists, in a setting of words by Rabinath Tagore, it is loud, but hardly offensive in any way I can hear myself. The baritone was very fine, powerful and impassioned, but without loss of any vocal quality, which is considerable in his case. The soprano was gentler and quieter, which I shall attribute to the score and her interpretation of it. Runnicles conducting was vigorous in this work, as it requires. The orchetral playing was strond and Runnicles singled out several wind and brass players in deserved acknowledgment at the end. By the way, the BPO now has at least a dozen women players, in stark contrast to the situation a few yearas ago. Audience reaction to both works was strongly approving, although there was not the standing ovation I would have expected elsewhere. COMING: notes on Die Tote Stadt at the Deutsche Oper, Stravinsky's Firebird and Sacre at the Staatsoper, and four Shostakovich quartets at the Kammermusiksaal. Jim Tobin