Brahms’s Second

The evening

Drama, freedom and courage play out in some of the most thrilling sounds ever written for an orchestra.

A political prisoner lies chained in his cell. But someone has remembered his plight – and in Beethoven’s Leonore Overture a whole drama of tyranny, freedom and courage plays out in some of the most thrilling sounds ever written for an orchestra. And that’s just the start of today’s adventure. There are fireworks from the LPO’s own Principal Trumpet Tom Nielsen, before conductor Adam Hickox whirls us away to the sun-kissed slopes of Brahms’s gorgeous Second Symphony. Written on holiday in the Austrian Alps and filled with lullabies and waltzes, this is music as bottled happiness: a taste of summer for these grey November days.