The Glasshouse

Lars Vogt conductor/piano
Royal Northern Sinfonia

Brahms Academic Festival Overture
Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5 ‘Emperor’
Jörg Widmann Fanfare
Schumann Symphony No.3 ‘Rhenish’

Lots of composers have been given honorary degrees – but only Johannes Brahms responded by writing an overture full of student drinking songs. His friend Robert Schumann, meanwhile, began his third symphony with a sweeping Rhineland vista but ended it at a beer festival. Well, the last concert of Royal Northern Sinfonia’s season calls for a bit of a celebration, and Lars Vogt is going out in the grandest possible style: as both soloist and conductor in Beethoven’s mightiest piano concerto. Beethoven never actually called it ‘The Emperor’ – but with music this magnificent, you can see why the name stuck.