Hough plays Hough

Johannes Brahms looked out over an Austrian lake as he worked on his Symphony No. 2. The music captures the menacing yet mellifluous view of nature he saw, as the passing clouds of day gave way to the infinite beauty of the sunset, the dark stillness of night and a glorious awakening to a new day. Before this, Sir Stephen Hough joins Marios Papadopoulos and the orchestra for a performance of his own piano concerto, a work ‘of jaw-dropping complexity and finger-crunching virtuosity’ for orchestra and pianist, in the words of one critic. The concert opens with purifying music by Ralph Vaughan Williams: his serene and somehow wholly English Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.