Schoenberg before Beethoven: Peter Serkin in Vienna

Brahms's Second Piano Concerto acts as the enlightening partner to Dutch avant-garde composer Reinbert de Leeuw's first symphonic work in 40 years, under the baton of Oliver Knussen.

For the centennial celebration of Max Reger’s death, American pianist Peter Serkin and Herbert Blomstedt travelled to Saxony, the composer’s birthplace, touring orchestras with his Piano Concerto in F minor.

Schoenberg's extraordinary orchestration of Brahms' G minor Piano Quartet completes a satisfying Sydney Symphony Orchestra concert under the baton of Matthias Pintscher. 

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Scottish Chamber Orchestra composer in residence in the late 1980s, seemed an appropriate choice to write a piece for this, the orchestra’s 40th anniversary year. As the title suggests, Concert Overture: Ebb of Winter was written during the approach of Spring this year and portrays the changing seasons in Maxwell Davies’ adopted homeland of Orkney.

Concerts conducted by Oliver Knussen are always impeccably programmed, with surprising connections often teased out between unusual pieces. His 2013 Proms appearance was no exception to this rule, juxtaposing two contrasting works for piano and orchestra by Igor Stravinsky, in between a symphonic sandwich of orchestral pieces by Hans Werner Henze and Michael Tippett.

It must be heart-warming for a young composer, sharing the bill with Beethoven and Stravinsky, to know that the programme has been named after her piece. The clear, confident writing in Helen Grime's A Cold Spring (2009) effectively conveyed the visual contrast offered by sharp-edged, bright days at this time of year.