Sabine Meyer gave her final concert at the Konservatorium Bern, bringing to a close a career that fundamentally reshaped the clarinet’s place on the international concert stage. The programme, titled “Winterzauber”, featured Meyer alongside the Alliage Quintett in the framework of Kammermusik Bern’s 4th chamber music concert.
The evening marked the end of more than four decades of activity as a soloist and chamber musician. Meyer herself acknowledged the moment after the concert, sharing a photograph from the stage with flowers and the succinct caption “Geschafft!!” on social media.
The Bern programme combined festive arrangements and chamber repertoire, opening with Engelbert Humperdinck’s Overture to Hänsel und Gretel (arr. Andreas Hilner) and continuing with works by Shostakovich, Bach, and contemporary composer Cyrille Lehn, before a second half devoted largely to Tchaikovsky, including selections from The Nutcracker. The concert highlighted Meyer’s long-standing engagement with chamber music and collaboration, here in dialogue with Alliage’s distinctive combination of saxophones and piano.
Over her career, Sabine Meyer played a decisive role in restoring the clarinet to the centre of the solo repertoire, appearing with more than 300 orchestras worldwide and collaborating with leading ensembles across Europe, Asia, and the United States. Her artistry combined technical precision with a strong commitment to expanding the instrument’s expressive and historical range, including the revival of the basset clarinet in Mozart’s works.
A defining early episode in her career came in the early 1980s, when her appointment to the Berlin Philharmonic under Herbert von Karajan — and the subsequent rejection of her permanent position after a probation period — became a widely discussed moment in the orchestra’s history. The episode, often cited in debates about gender and tradition in major orchestras, preceded Meyer’s decision to pursue an independent solo career, which soon established her as one of the leading clarinettists of her generation.
With her final appearance in Bern, Meyer closes a chapter that has left a lasting mark on the instrument’s modern history — not through farewell gestures, but through a programme rooted in collaboration, repertoire, and continuity.
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