Composer

Week 2 of our Piano Festival continues with two programs devoted to the commanding brilliance and deep expressive power of Beethoven and Brahms. Under the direction of Music Director Andreas Delfs, Marc-André Hamelin takes center stage in Brahms’ expansive Piano Concerto No. 2, alongside the luminous Haydn Variations. Framed by dramatic overtures, these concerts reveal four masterpieces that balance strength with lyricism—and close the festival with authority, depth, and unforgettable artistry.

EPSG:4326

Piano Festival: Hamelin Plays Brahms

Eastman Theatre

Nils Mönkemeyer’s exquisite artistry and innovative programming have won plaudits worldwide. ‘This great violist can build a tremendous sense of anticipation’, notes the Neue Zürcher Zeitung am Sonntag, ‘and his magnificent range of colours is seemingly infinite’. He returns to Wigmore Hall with regular duo partner William Youn for a recital in which Brahms’s mellow viola version of his Second Clarinet Sonata forms the ideal companion to beautiful works by Rebecca Clarke, who studied composition with Charles Villiers Stanford and viola with Lionel Tertis.

Nils Mönkemeyer viola; William Youn piano

Wigmore Hall

Experience intimate chamber music programs curated and performed by small ensembles of SF Symphony musicians.

Andres, Strauss, and Brahms

Davies Symphony Hall

French composer Cécile Chaminade composed over four hundred works in the shadows of her contemporaries Brahms and Saint-Saëns, yet her music was so popular that “Chaminade Clubs” sprang up in the United States during her lifetime. Debussy’s early trio, also overtly Romantic, is offered as a companion work, with both trios now increasingly heard in concert halls around the world. 

Grand Rapids, MI 

St. Cecilia Music Center

Elim Chan conducts a quartet of works that delve into the great unknown: Choral works by Brahms and Arvo Pärt lay a meditative foundation, while Renaud Capuçon regales us with the lustrous melodies and glittering pyrotechnics of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto. John Adams’s Doctor Atomic Symphony cloaks Nuclear Age anxiety in dark orchestral splendor.

Elim Chan Conducts Adams and Mendelssohn

Elim Chan conducts the Symphony in a stunning quartet of works that delve into the great unknown. In Nänie, Brahms memorializes a beloved friend with a poignant choral funeral song, transforming sorrowful resignation into humble gratitude. Renaud Capuçon regales us with the lustrous melodies, vibrant textures, and glittering pyrotechnics of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto. Arvo Pärt’s shimmering a cappella Magnificat exemplifies the tintinnabuli style, which the composer invented and named after the bell-like resonance produced by a triad. John Adams’s Doctor Atomic Symphony, a condensed instrumental version of his 2005 opera, cloaks Nuclear Age anxiety in dark orchestral splendor.

Music for an autumn day with Brahms’ haunting Clarinet Quintet.
Brahms had retired from music when he met the clarinettist of his dreams. Result: this magical Clarinet Quintet, in which melodies curl like woodsmoke, and passionate sorrows burst like wildfire into golden autumn afternoons. In short, it’s a masterpiece, and with our own Section Leader Clarinet Oliver Janes leading a team of colleagues, it’s 40 minutes of magic.

Centre Stage: Brahms' Clarinet Quintet

CBSO Centre

Dame Sarah Connolly’s duo partnership with Joseph Middleton, forged over many years, rises from the telepathic understanding that passes between them whenever they make music. The celebrated mezzo-soprano’s ‘rapport with top Lieder pianist Joseph Middleton’, notes BBC Music Magazine, ‘allows for some very special interchanges’. Their recital includes treasures from Brahms’s Op. 57 collection and the hauntingly beautiful Late Romanticism of Webern’s Early Songs.

Dame Sarah Connolly mezzo-soprano; Joseph Middleton piano

The supremely talented Soloists of the Kronberg Academy present Wigmore Hall audiences with the chance to hear the next generation of world-class chamber musicians. Their choice of repertoire includes two movements from the F-A-E Sonata, a collaborative work by Robert Schumann, the young Brahms and Schumann’s pupil Albert Dietrich. The concert is framed by Debussy’s mature, ravishingly beautiful Cello Sonata and his late Violin Sonata, a luminous and harmonically daring work that crowns his final creative period.

Soloists of the Kronberg Academy; Kirill Gerstein piano

Kirill Gerstein, Principal Professor in the Kronberg Academy study programmes since 2018, once again joins four of the Academy’s exceptional young musicians this evening. They open with Brahms’s mighty Piano Quintet in F minor, a four-movement work of symphonic proportions, and follow it with Dvořák’s comparably great Second Piano Quintet, a richly lyrical staple of the chamber music repertoire since its first performance in 1888.

Members of the Minnesota Orchestra join pianist Simon Trpčeski for an afternoon of chamber music on the Orchestra Hall stage.

Brahms, Prokofiev and Tabakova

Orchestra Hall Minneapolis

Inspired by the art of Olle Bærtling. Part of the Halland Music Festival. Malin Broman (violin), Christopher Parkes (horn), Simon Crawford-Phillips (piano). Program: Stenhammar – Two Sentimental Romances; Nystroem – Prélude pastoral; Byström – Diagonal Music; Brahms – Horn Trio in E-flat major.

Diagonal Music

Varbergs Teater

A program for full ensemble and chamber forces exploring humanity, displacement, and belonging. Featuring staged performance elements alongside both historical and contemporary repertoire, the concert integrates multiple perspectives on refuge, identity, and human connection.

In Search Of Home

Church of the Epiphany

Valentina Peleggi conducts a program shaped by memory, identity, and musical storytelling. Pianist Jon Kimura Parker returns to perform Brahms’ sweeping and deeply personal First Piano Concerto. Strauss’ Rosenkavalier Suite brings the evening to a close with its lush orchestration and nostalgic charm.

Brahms & Strauss

Dominion Energy Center

Opus 13, the most recent winner of the prestigious Wigmore Hall International String Quartet competition, makes its Sheffield debut with a programme of bold and lyrical works.

Beethoven and Brahms String Quartets

Crucible Theatre

This program offers a satisfying arc from the new to the beloved. BPO Associate concertmaster Amy Glidden joins JoAnn Falletta for Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1, a Romantic favorite filled with lyricism, drama, and heart. You will also hear a world premiere, Jonathan Leshnoff’s Symphony No. 5, bringing a contemporary voice into conversation with masterworks. The evening closes with Brahms’s Second Symphony, warm, luminous, and richly crafted. It is a concert that rewards deep listening and leaves you feeling grounded.

Glidden Plays Bruch

Kleinhans Music Hall

Dvořák | Brahms

Imperial Baths

With some pieces, you just want to close your eyes and let your imagination paint a picture. For our Finnish guest conductor Emilia Hoving, it’s all about the landscape of the far North: lakes, forests, midnight sunlight and the shimmering wonder of the Northern Lights. So let your ears do the gazing in Finnish classics by Saariaho and Sibelius – and join RSNO Leader Maya Iwabuchi on an autumn getaway to the Austrian Alps, in Brahms’ magnificent Violin Concerto.

RSNO Season 26-27: Brahms' Violin Concerto

Usher Hall

Get up close and personal to the art of chamber music in the Rose Studio at CMS, our most intimate venue. Discover the splendor of chamber music like never before with both classics and rarities of the repertoire.

Czerny & Brahms

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

Recipients of the Avery Fisher Career Grant and many other international prizes, pianist Evren Ozel and violinist Joshua Brown perform a program exploring the writer Marcel Proust’s assertion that music alone can access what language leaves unsaid. The works on the program bear a direct literary imprint: Chausson's Poème translates a short story by Turgenev into musical form, while Schumann's Kreisleriana depicts E.T.A. Hoffmann's fictional musician Johannes Kreisler. Debussy’s Preludes for piano include literature references from Baudelaire to Shakespeare and more. The movements from the F.A.E. Sonata and Ysaÿe's Ballade, meanwhile, were inspired by their composers’ close friendships with poets and literary figures of their time. Finally, perhaps the most remarkable connection on this program belongs to Fauré's Violin Sonata and Proust. Through his In Search of Lost Time, Proust immortalizes Fauré as the fictional composer Vinteuil, whose violin sonata becomes a recurring symbol of longing and lost love. That a real piece of music could be so thoroughly absorbed into one of literature's greatest novels speaks to exactly the kind of alchemy this program sets out to explore.

Evren Ozel, piano & Joshua Brown, violin

Kaufman Music Center

Two intense chordal strikes summon the inescapability of fate underpinning Brahms’s Tragic Overture. Unearthed from a pile of old manuscripts, Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 9 was discovered by Robert Schumann from a trunk gathering dust years after the composer’s passing. Known as ‘The Great’, Schubert’s final symphony is inspired by his love of nature and the alps.

Schubert’s Great

MediaCityUK

Tchaikovsky’s explosive Manfred Symphony meets the sunlit warmth of Brahms’s Violin Concerto.

Manfred is an outsider – a purposeless spirit, tormented by impossible desires and driven into the wilderness by a society whose conventions he rejects. Tchaikovsky sensed a kindred spirit in Byron’s brooding anti-hero, and his explosive Manfred Symphony contains some of the most uncompromising (and the most tender) music he ever wrote. Edward Gardner adores it, but it’s a hard act to follow. So we’re beginning the concert with the serene melodies and sunlit warmth of Brahms’s Violin Concerto, played tonight by a good friend of the LPO – Julia Fischer, a violinist who lives every note she plays.

Julia Fischer plays Brahms

Southbank Centre

Athens, Greece

Megaron

Academy clarinettists perform premieres of works written for clarinet quartet, alongside arrangements of pieces by Schumann and Brahms.

Clāritās Clarinet Quartet

Royal Academy of Music

Featuring restless arpeggios, furious tremolos, and a passage of warm, hymn-like chords, Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio No. 2 is a challenge for its performers and a delight for its listeners. Even the composer admitted it’s “a trifle nasty to play!”

Mendelssohn & Brahms

Walt Disney Concert Hall

Join Orchestra Santa Monica for the opening concert of the 2026-27 season, featuring the World Premiere of a new commission by Jason Anthony Gomez, OSM’s first-ever Composer-in-Residence.  The program also includes Vaughan Williams’ lyrical Oboe Concerto with Santa Monica native and LA Phil Principal Oboe Ryan Roberts in his OSM debut, followed by Brahms’ monumental Symphony No. 1, one of the greatest achievements in the symphonic repertoire.

Gomez & Brahms

Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center

New York & South America tour

Julio Prestes

True to its mission of promoting and raising awareness of classical music, the Opéra Orchestre National Montpellier Occitanie tours the Occitanie region in various formations.

National Orchestra of Montpellier Occitanie

Theatre Archipelago

Symphonic Sketches is a concert full of musical “pictures,” with each piece telling its own story and capturing a different feeling or moment. You’ll hear the lively, joyful energy of Johannes Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture, the warm and nostalgic feel of Godfrey Ridout’s Fall Fair, and the bold, uplifting sounds of Edward Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1, along with the powerful and familiar Jerusalem by Charles Hubert Hastings Parry. The concert wraps up with the rich, dramatic music of Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7. It’s a program that’s easy to enjoy, whether you’re hearing this music for the first time or coming back to favourites you already love.

Symphonic Sketches

The Machine Shop

James Ehnes’ 50th Birthday Recital

Halifax United Church

Women's Choir in the Foyer

Teatro Massimo di Palermo

A 'human' requiem, not for liturgy, but as a concert oratorio: this is what Johannes Brahms had in mind with his "German Requiem," a work with which he intended to offer comfort to those left behind. The more intimate, almost chamber music-like moments of the work exude something timelessly touching. This is especially evident in Brahms's own arrangement for piano duet.

A German Requiem

Monastery Church of the Assumption of Mary, Aldersbach

Blaibach Concert Hall

From myth to fire to consolation, this program traces a journey through passion, virtuosity and reflection. Dorothy Howell’s Lamia opens with a darkly lyrical, evocative story of a nymph and her fate at the hands of a jealous god. In her CSO debut, violinist Alexandra Conunova brings fiery energy and soaring lyricism to Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto, one of the 20th century’s great Romantic concertos. Two choral works by Brahms offer final consolation: Nänie laments the inevitability of death through three episodes from Greek mythology, while Schicksalslied ("Song of Destiny") contrasts the eternal bliss of immortals with the restlessness of human existence.

Songs Of Destiny

Cincinnati Music Hall

Voices United features concertmaster Maureen Murchie and UND professors Nariaki Sugiura and Simona Barbu in Beethoven's Triple Concerto for violin, piano and cello, and the BMSO will shine in Brahms' Symphony No. 1

Voices United

Bismarck Event Center

Born in Colombia in 1995, this young musician won a prize at the prestigious Malko Competition in Copenhagen in 2024 and is principal assistant conductor of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. Her energetic conducting promises an intense performance. Alongside her, the young Viennese violin prodigy, Leonhard Baumgartner (born in 2007, winner of the 2024 Eurovision Young Musicians competition), will shine in Brahms' Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77.

Tierra del Fuego

Opéra Comédie

Enjoy a varied programme of chamber music from Royal College of Music musicians at this lunchtime concert at St Mary Abbots Church in Kensington.

RCM at St Mary Abbots Church

St Mary Abbots Church

Having won First Prize at the 2018 Leeds International Piano Competition, Eric Lu has since achieved the rare distinction of becoming one of only two pianists – alongside fellow Leeds laureate Radu Lupu – to have claimed two of the four major international piano competitions. This remarkable feat was confirmed with his First Prize victory at the XIX International Chopin Piano Competition in 2025. Reflecting his most recent win, Eric includes two pieces by Chopin in his programme.

Eric Lu

Leeds Conservatoire

Vienna, Austria

Musikverein

Konzerthaus Wien

Teatro Mayor Julio Mario Santo Domingo

One of today’s most inspirational pianists joins this elite German radio orchestra for a concert that exudes wit, melodic beauty and mercurial charm.

“The melodies fly so thick here that you have to be careful not to step on one,” deadpanned Brahms to his publisher when writing his joyful, sunny symphony. It could well apply to this whole concert. It is Brahms at his most joyful and easy-going, and Prokofiev channelling the spirit of Haydn for an affectionate, livewire pastiche – soulful, tuneful and occasionally laugh-out-loud.

NDR Radio Philharmonic, Hanover

Cadogan Hall

‘What beauty!’ declared Jean Sibelius, as a flight of swans soared above his home in the Finnish forests. That shining vision grew into his Fifth Symphony, heard here in its original 1915 version, and from opening sunrise to unforgettable finish, few living conductors understand it better than our guest Thomas Dausgaard. First, though, pianist Benjamin Grosvenor – another great friend of the CBSO – hurls himself into Brahms’ tempestuous First Piano Concerto.

Sibelius' 5th Symphony

Symphony Hall in Birmingham

Brahms at his most powerful and Sibelius at his most beautiful.
‘What beauty!’ declared Jean Sibelius, as a flight of swans soared above his home in the Finnish forests. That shining vision grew into his Fifth Symphony, heard here in its original 1915 version, and from opening sunrise to unforgettable finish, few living conductors understand it better than our guest Thomas Dausgaard. First, though, pianist Benjamin Grosvenor – another great friend of the CBSO – hurls himself into Brahms’ tempestuous First Piano Concerto.

Discover the resilient brilliance of three composers who transform darkness into radiant, enduring beauty, each in their own unique way: from Brahms’ triumphant breakthrough First Symphony to the glowing lyricism and fireworks of Barber’s Violin Concerto (featuring our former Concertmaster Robert Uchida), and a specially-commissioned world premiere by Canadian composer Matthew-John Knights.

Shadows & Light: Barber & Brahms

Dalhousie Arts Centre

After studying at Chetham’s School of Music, Claire now attends the Royal Academy of Music in London. In 2024, she reached the brass final of BBC Young Musician of the Year. Sam studied music at the University of Cambridge and now studies ensemble piano at the Royal Academy of Music. Their programme includes Sigurd Berge’s Horn-Lokk which blends traditional horn calls with Norwegian folk inspired melodies.

Sigurd Berge (1929-2002) was a Norwegian composer known for his contributions to music education and his interest in Norwegian folk music. His works span a variety of styles, from traditional tonal music to electronic music and multi-media compositions.

Budapest, Hungary

Müpa Budapest

Croatian composer, pianist and violinist Dora Pejačević (1885-1923) helped transform the musical scene in her homeland with works of tremendous substance and imagination. Elena Urioste and Tom Poster show why her late-Romantic art was so highly regarded in fin-de-siècle Europe with a performance of the enchanting ‘Spring’ Sonata. The duo, praised by Strings Magazine for their ‘sympathetic, poetic’ artistry, set Pejačević’s uplifting score in company with Dvořák’s exquisitely sombre Nocturne and Brahms’s emotionally complex Third Violin Sonata.

Elena Urioste violin; Tom Poster piano

The Roskat Quartet and Iris Duo join forces to perform Brahms’ rich and unrelenting second sextet.

Spotlight: Brahms’ String Sextet No 2 in G Major

RNCM (Royal Northern College of Music)

It took Brahms no less than 14 years to complete his First Symphony; he kept revising, postponing, and doubting – mainly himself. »I will never compose a symphony. You have no idea how we feel when we continuously hear such a giant marching behind us«, wrote the composer to the conductor Hermann Levi. The giant being Ludwig van Beethoven, whom Brahms revered as a role model, but whose genius intimidated and inhibited him in his own creative work. Ultimately, however, everything turned out for the best, and his Symphony No. 1 is one of the most brilliant masterworks in music history. Andrés Orozco-Estrada continues the grand tradition of the Gürzenich Orchestra, which has always been closely associated with Brahms’ symphonic output. Vienna’s Singverein, one of the world’s leading concert choruses, joins the orchestra in one of Brahms’ most touching choral compositions.

Into the Light

Cologne Philharmonie

Violinist, composer, and conductor Guy Braunstein returns for the Boston Philharmonic's final season to perform a piece that most violinists regard as the pinnacle of their repertory: Beethoven’s sole and sublime, Violin Concerto in D.

Beethoven & Brahms

Boston Symphony Hall

Champlain Trio

Phelps Mansion Museum

Anderson & Roe redefine the piano duo experience with fearless creativity and dazzling virtuosity. Equally at home in classical masterworks and bold reimaginings, their performances are theatrical, witty, and technically breathtaking. With an unmistakable chemistry, they transform the concert stage into a space of innovation, connection, and pure musical exhilaration.

Anderson and Roe Piano Duo

Sunset Center

Hear two loves united through organ music. Although they were never a couple, Clara Schumann was the object of Johannes Brahms’ admiration throughout his life. At this concert, organist Isabelle Demers performs an organ variation by both of these composers.

Isabelle Demers: Organ music from past and present

Göteborgs Konserthus

Bernstein, Brahms, and Barber

Andrews University

Concord Chamber Music opens its season with three masterpieces: Mozart’s dramatic G Minor Piano Quartet, Ravel’s dazzling Duo for Violin and Cello, and Brahms’s powerful C Minor Piano Quartet. Artistic directors Daniel Chong and Jessica Bodner are joined by cellist Karen Ouzounian, a singular voice in classical music, and pianist Katherine Chi, renowned for her elegant and deeply committed artistry.

CCM Season Opener: Mozart, Ravel, & Brahms

Groton Hill Music Center

A summer concert in October. Part of the Debut Series, in collaboration with Talent Norge's Podium initiative. Duration approx. 1 hour and 30 minutes including intermission.

2xKraggerud, Rognes, Kauer & Hadland

Ramme gård og Universitetets aula

Program: W. A. Mozart: Don Giovanni Overture, K. 527; Jesse Jones: Concerto for Mandolin, "Tunebook"; K. Husa: Fantasies; S. Prokofiev: Symphony No. 1 in D Major, Op. 25, "Classical". Running time 1 hour and 40 minutes including intermission. Pre-concert chat with Maestro Pirard and Jacob Jolliff one hour before the concert.

Fantasies

Ithaca College

Jonathan Leshnoff is a GRAMMY-nominated composer known for his use of striking harmonic language and compelling melodies. Score, premiered in 2022, is a brief, ebullient piece that is ideally suited to serve as the season’s opening music.

Epic

Stefanie H. Weill Center for the Performing Arts

Bratislava, Slovakia

Slovak Philharmonic – Reduta

Isabelle Faust reunites with Alexander Melnikov, her duo partner of two decades’ standing, in a poetic programme of sonatas by Schumann and Brahms.

Isabelle Faust & Alexander Melnikov

Milton Court Concert Hall

Known for her dynamic presence on the podium and her “splendid and confident” (San Francisco Classical Voice) conducting, Laura Jackson leads the Royal Conservatory Orchestra in a powerful season-opening program.

Royal Conservatory Orchestra with conductor Laura Jackson

The Royal Conservatory of Music

Ryan began playing at the age of four and has since performed internationally in recital and with orchestra. In 2026, he won First Prize at the Hastings International Piano Competition, also receiving the Orchestra Prize and Audience Prize. He was a semifinalist at the 2024 Leeds International Piano Competition, where he received the G. Henle Verlag Prize, and later advanced to the semifinals of the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition.

Ryan Zhu, Piano

Smith Square Hall

Following her acclaimed Sydney Symphony debut with Sir Donald Runnicles in 2024, Chinese soprano Ying Fang returns with her ‘remarkable voice of polished delicacy, sweetness and strength without forcefulness’ (Sydney Morning Herald) – the ideal instrument to bring these exquisite pastoral scenes to life.

Ying Fang sings Songs of the Auvergne

Sydney Opera House

Brussels, Belgium

BOZAR

Alena Baeva & Tomáš Netopil

Municipal House

Sol Gabetta, among the most eloquent of all advocates for Felix Mendelssohn’s cello works, devotes the first half of her recital with Kristian Bezuidenhout to music composed in the mid-1800s. Robert Schumann stipulated that his poetic Fantasiestücke, conceived for clarinet, could also be played on the cello, thereby adding three engrossing pieces to the instrument’s Romantic repertoire. The duo crowns its programme with the compelling dialogue of Brahms’s lyrical Cello Sonata No. 1 in E minor Op. 38.

Sol Gabetta cello; Kristian Bezuidenhout piano

Dortmund, Germany

Konzerthaus Dortmund

Experience a visceral journey through the highs and lows of the human spirit, where every note is a heartbeat in the face of destiny. The concert ignites with Polina Nazaykinskaya’s Fractures, a searing exploration of vulnerability and resilience that prepares the air for the arrival of sisters Emily and Julia Bruskin. In Brahms’s Double Concerto, their bond creates a powerful dialogue of reconciliation, proving that even the deepest frictions can find harmony.

Fate, Fury and Beethoven’s Fifth

Century II Performing Arts & Convention Center

Beethoven and Brahms

The Burlington Performing Arts Centre

Experience an evening of timeless orchestral masterworks led by conductor, Hae Lee. Featuring Erin Lano, Richard Strauss’s Horn Concerto No. 1 dazzles with virtuosic brilliance, showcasing the horn’s heroic character and lyrical warmth in a work filled with youthful energy and sweeping melodies. In contrast, Brahms’s Serenade No. 2 offers a richly textured and intimate sound world, creating a warm, mellow palette and its graceful movements unfolding with elegance and depth. Together, these beloved works highlight the expressive beauty and craftsmanship of the Romantic era.

Horn & Serenade: Strauss & Brahms

Randolph-Macon College

St. Christopher's School

Fueled by passion and intensity, the season opens with an exhilarating overture, the return of Ilya Yakushev in Tchaikovsky’s iconic Piano Concerto No. 1, and Brahms’ monumental 1st Symphony - a powerful journey from embers to full orchestral blaze.

The Fire Within

Five Flags Center

Conductor Anja Bihlmaier returns to the Beethovenfest Bonn for the third year in a row to perform the Requiem by Brahms on the Day of German Unity – with the orchestra of the BBC and the Audi Youth Choir Academy in phenomenal cast. Brahms chose texts from the Luther Bible to tell with poignant depth and comfort of the reconciliation of man with death. As a requiem in German, it was a novelty - and as a sounding home, our festival theme "Zuhause" brings it to an end. Lili Boulanger's short psalm soundtrack with pomp and timpani forms a charming contrast to get started.

Brahms Requiem: Bonn

Beethovenhalle

Our 51st season opens with two audience favorites, the Variations on a Theme by Haydn by Johannes Brahms and the Sixth Symphony of Antonin Dvorak. Both are examples of the finest orchestral writing of the late 19th century, helping assure both composers of their place in history. The Variations are not, as advertised, on a theme by Haydn, yet Brahms and his publisher probably knew this. As the theme was believed by the public to be by the venerated composer, the name stuck (and likely helped sell the piece to audiences!). Dvorak’s Symphony no. 6 is an example of a composer at the top of his creative game, blending Czech folk elements with traditional symphonic writing to produce a wholly unique sound. Orchestras and audiences love both works, but they will also be enchanted by our opening piece, an overture to a little-known opera by Dame Ethel Smyth, an English composer not well known in America. Smyth was a fascinating woman, the first female composer to receive a damehood (the equivalent of a male being knighted). She also worked for the suffrage movement, even spending time in prison for her activities. Her Overture to the Wreckers is a wonderful example of late Victorian-era music, with hints of Edward Elgar, Arthur Sullivan and others, woven into a wholly original composition.

Two Classics and a Surprise!

University of Utah

Kodaly, Brahms and Beethoven

Dorchester Abbey

Daniil Trifonov, the Berliner Philharmoniker and Kirill Petrenko have already performed together on several occasions – with the press describing them as a “sonic hurricane” and an “inspired exchange”. Their collaboration continues with Brahms’s First Piano Concerto, a work in which Trifonov can deploy both his technical accomplishment and his expressive depth, from chamber-like delicacy to symphonic power. The concert’s second half features Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra. Opening with a hymn-like sunrise, the work traces the philosopher Zarathustra’s journey to humanity: dramatic, mystical and splendorous in sound.

Kirill Petrenko and Daniil Trifonov with Brahms and Strauss

Berliner Philharmoniker

Recognized as “a violinist in a class of his own,” (The Times) James Ehnes celebrates his 50th birthday with a special international tour. His Koerner Hall appearance with pianist Andrew Armstrong features works by Brahms and Bartók, along with a newly commissioned piece by acclaimed Canadian composer Carmen Braden.

James Ehnes 50th Canada Birthday Tour

Get under the skin of Mozart’s last symphony, as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra retells the story of a masterwork.

In 1788, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed his last symphony.

We’re still not quite sure how he did it: creating a masterpiece so perfect that for more than two centuries, it has shared a name with the king of the gods. But why is it considered to be a masterpiece? Here to answer that question (and more) are presenter Leah Broad, Vasily Petrenko (conducting the RPO for the first time at Cadogan Hall) and the full Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, with an entertaining guide to what makes Mozart tick. They’ll take the Symphony apart and show you how it works. And then they’ll put it back together, concluding the evening with a full performance.

Whether you’re a hardcore Mozart fan or a total newbie, it’s an experience that never fails to inspire.

Composer

Johannes Brahms

Events

Upcoming events

Jan 11 - Nov 15, 2026

Members of the Teatro alla Scala Orchestra · Teatro alla Scala

Apr 25, 2026 - Jun 12, 2027

Chamber Music · Wiener Staatsoper

Oct 29, 2026 - Apr 22, 2027

Grand Rapids, MI · Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

4 - 6 Nov, 2026

Do you love Brahms? · Bühnen Bern

Nov 5, 2026

Thursday Lunchtimes: Chiarina Trio · Royal Northern College of Music

Past events

Nov 1, 2026

Piano Festival: Hamelin Plays Brahms · Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra

Nov 1, 2026

Nils Mönkemeyer viola; William Youn piano · Wigmore Hall

About

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