Vienna Tonkünstler Orchestra with Yeol Eum Son, piano

The Vienna Tonkünstler Orchestra hardly needs introduction! Add music by Sibelius and Brahms – and Korean superstar Yeol Eum Son in Mozart’s loveliest concerto – and this should be something special.

No city in Europe lives and breathes classical music like Vienna – or performs it with more style. The Vienna Tonkünstler isn’t the city’s most famous orchestra, but it’s the most youthful in spirit, with an approach to music-making that embraces both adventure and a deep sense of tradition.

Today, under its principal conductor Yutaka Sado, it scales two peaks of the symphonic tradition: Sibelius’ elemental Seventh Symphony, and Brahms’ heaven-storming First – the piece they called ‘Beethoven’s Tenth’. These players have this music in their DNA but there’s always scope for surprises, and when Korean piano superstar (and Tchaikovsky International Competition medallist) Yeol Eum Son plays Mozart’s best-loved piano concerto, it’ll sound as fresh as the day it was written.

‘High polish, symmetry, and carefully scaled dynamics characterize much of this gifted pianist’s Mozart’ (ClassicsToday on Yeol Eum Son)