Javier Perianes Plays Schumann

Javier Perianes takes the piano at the Royal Festival Hall on Wednesday 3 March 2027, joined by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Thomas Guggeis. It's a programme built around Robert Schumann's Piano Concerto, a piece described as brimming with coded love messages to his wife, Clara. That sits alongside Webern's airy Im Sommerwind, inspired by the poem 'Peace, peace in the lark's song, in the gusts of the wind, in the waves of grass'. The night closes with Brahms' exuberant Piano Quartet No.1, rebooted in full orchestral colour by Schoenberg, who was Webern's teacher.

Perianes is the name to watch here. The Times hailed him for his 'evident modesty and utter brilliance', and Opera Wire noted that he plays with such grace it seems as if his hands are floating over the keys. He's a pianist who lets the music do the heavy lifting rather than making a show of it, which fits a programme that moves from the intimate, coded world of Schumann to the wide-open orchestral textures of the Brahms/Schoenberg arrangement.

The venue is the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank, a 2,700-seat Grade I listed building that opened on 3 May 1951 for the Festival of Britain. It was the first post-war building to be so protected, listed in 1981. On the walkway towards Hungerford Bridge, you'll find a head-and-shoulders bust of Nelson Mandela by Ian Walters.

Standard entry starts from £20, and the concert runs for about two hours, starting at 7.30pm.