To the summit

Richard Strauss once boasted that he could depict even a knife and fork in music. So when he set out to portray the Bavarian Alps, the results are exactly as spectacular as you’d expect, complete with waterfalls, glaciers, and an ear-splitting storm. But Vladimir Jurowski will find an extra dimension in Strauss’s vast hymn to nature: the huge vistas and moments of stillness that make this infinitely more than just the world’s greatest musical picture postcard. It should make a fitting counterpart to Nicola Benedetti’s performance of Elgar’s Violin Concerto – still the ultimate proof of the profoundly romantic heart behind Elgar’s veneer of Edwardian reserve.