Herreweghe conducts Beethoven and Schubert

Hear Schubert’s youthful Fifth Symphony alongside Beethoven’s Violin Concerto performed by Thomas Zehetmair, whose recording of the masterpiece Gramophone described as “a great performance, one that simply has to be heard”.

Schubert was just 19 years old and, according to his diary, ‘infatuated with Mozart’, when he composed his Fifth Symphony. Mozart’s influence can be heard in his remarkably accomplished orchestral writing. But the symphony’s profusion of melodies and the hint of melancholy underlying its grace and youthful energy are all Schubert’s own.

In the first half, baroque and Classical music expert Philippe Herreweghe conducts Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, with Thomas Zehetmair the soloist. With its breathtakingly beautiful central slow movement, this work is one of the mainstays of the violin repertoire.

The overture to Beethoven’s only ballet opens tonight’s concert. The story of The Creatures of Prometheus was apt source material indeed for Beethoven - the programme for the first performance describes Prometheus as ‘a lofty spirit who, finding the human beings of his time in a state of ignorance, refined them through art and knowledge.’