“Certainly, when it comes to classical music, few cities are so abundantly and audaciously full of life. As an inheritance from its decades of division into East and West, unified Berlin boasts a gloriously impractical number of musical institutions: eight orchestras and three opera companies. Municipal finances are in a shambles, and institutional squabbling abounds, but if you tuned out all the background noise this summer, you could find a thrilling array of options: fiendishly good orchestral concerts, willfully scandalous opera productions, open-air concerts on a beautifully restored square, contemporary chamber music and even music piped underwater into a swimming pool.”