Performer: Sir Colin Davis

While Weber is widely acknowledged as being of historic importance as the link in the German operatic tradition between Beethoven and Wagner, his operas are rarely staged in England, and even in concert remain a relative novelty. Curious because this is music of the utmost vitality and beauty and at times he surely borders on genius.

The last opera of the Mozart/Da Ponte cycle – the second of the composer’s operas to be performed in this Mozart-dominated season at the Royal Opera House – Così fan tutte pivots on two pairs of young lovers whose affection is put to the test by an old ‘philosopher’, Don Alfonso. Women, the old man argues, are all the same: never constant in their love, never loyal to their men.

If he could, would Beethoven have chosen Mitsuko Uchida to première his final piano concerto? They certainly seem to inhabit the same creative plane, at once revelling in the innovative – nay, revolutionary – features, whilst enjoying the grand connections with their historical precedents too.