Prom 15 – Paul Lewis plays Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ concerto Paul Lewis plays Beethoven’s ‘Emperor’ concerto

Part of the BBC Proms.

Life is celebrated and loss mourned in music spanning over 200 years. The BBC Philharmonic and its Principal Guest Conductor Ben Gernon pair Beethoven’s majestic final piano concerto – for which we welcome back Paul Lewis, who played all five Beethoven piano concertos in the 2010 season – with Brahms’s sunny Second Symphony, whose lyrical, pastoral spirit harks back to the earlier composer’s own ‘Pastoral’ Symphony (No. 6). The concert opens in a more sombre, contemplative mood with the world premiere of Tansy Davies’s What Did We See? – a meditation on death, healing and transcendence that builds on material from the composer’s recent 9/11-inspired opera Between Worlds.