Michael Tilson Thomas conducts Brahms — With Christian Tetzlaff

In this delightfully upbeat all-Brahms program, the London Symphony Orchestra with Conductor Laureate Michael Tilson Thomas and virtuoso Christian Tetzlaff—called "the finest violinist performing before the public today" by The New Yorker—prove that in the hands of our greatest artists, the music always comes first: "It’s the composers who change the world," says Tetzlaff, "who show us the soul in a new light."

Tetzlaff starts off the show in high style with Brahms's sole Violin Concerto in D major, capturing the sunny beauty of the Wörthersee in Austria where the composer spent the summer of 1878 writing this beloved masterpiece. MTT and the LSO then move on to the Serenade No. 1—also in the bright key of D major—the product of a 25-year-old genius at the dawn of his career, filled with warmth and humor, whose rapturous reception overshadowed even that of its illustrious contemporary, the Piano Concerto No. 1.

Photo: Christian Tetzlaff © Giorgia Bertazzi