Academy of St Martin in the Fields with Joshua Bell

Anyone who witnessed Joshua Bell’s last visit to Nottingham won’t easily have forgotten his revelatory Beethoven performance whilst leading the Academy of St Martin in the Fields from a piano stool. This time we’ll be hearing Beethoven’s Second Symphony, whose buoyant mood wouldn’t necessarily have been expected given that the composer would only just have learned that his encroaching deafness was incurable. Making great play with sharp dynamic contrasts and rhythmic high jinks, it chortles with bluff humour.

Vivaldi’s Four Seasons are some of the earliest – and certainly the most famous – pieces of programme music, inspired as they were by the landscape paintings of Italian artist, Marco Ricci. Vividly evocative, they’ve lost none of their popularity since Vivaldi composed them between 1720 and 1723, so much so that they’ve featured in at least a hundred films and television shows. Before Joshua unleashes his violin on them, there’s the chance to hear a new work by one of his regular collaborators. Virtuoso American double-bassist, Edgar Meyer, is also an acclaimed composer who’s won no less than five Grammy Awards writing commissions for several stellar artists including Yo Yo Ma, Emmanuel Ax and the Emerson String Quartet.