Merry Pranks

‘A goodly, portly man, of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye and a most noble carriage’. And as this musical portrait of Falstaff lumbers humorously into life, you’ll hear Shakespeare’s fat knight transformed into pure Elgar. Witty, stirring and surprisingly poignant, Falstaff is one of British music’s most unexpected masterpieces; a fitting companion for the dazzling orchestral high-jinks of Richard Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel. And since both composers revered Brahms, his First Piano Concerto makes a perfect opener. Vladimir Jurowski is joined by Yefim Bronfman, whose combination of gentleness and power is ideally suited to this epic – yet profoundly intimate – Concerto.