Fabio Luisi opens NHKSO's new season with Franz Schmidt's Fourth Symphony

María Dueñas’ Tokyo performance of Beethoven's Violin Concerto is less about display than about the living drama between held breath and release. 

Conducted by Fabio Luisi, Japan's premier orchestra serves up a superb blend of Eastern and Western music and influences. 

At Suntory Hall, Ton Koopman and the NHK Symphony Orchestra bring elegance and exuberance to an all-Mozart programme including a flute concerto featuring its principal flautist.

For whatever reason Fabio Luisi chose Verdi's Requiem for his inauguration concert with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo, it turned out to be an apt and poignant choice.

Igor Stravinsky once described Sergei Rachmaninov as "a six-and-a-half foot scowl". His Second Symphony – often a lugubrious affair – was here turned into something urgent and vital.