Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra of Tokyo

Melody without end: Christian Tetzlaff plays Beethoven and Sebastian Weigle conducts Rachmaninov with one of Japan’s finest orchestras.

Christian Tetzlaff is a violinist steeped in the German classical tradition, so it almost goes without saying that his Beethoven has a unique assurance and authority. But it’s thrillingly immediate and alive too: The New York Times described his playing as ‘tight, clean, and free of excess rhetoric’, and his interpretation of Beethoven’s soaring Violin Concerto is a thing of wonder.

The Yomiuri Nippon Orchestra of Tokyo opens with a true classic of Japanese orchestral music, before the Orchestra’s principal conductor Sebastian Weigle sweeps us off to the endless Russian landscapes and glorious romantic melodies of Rachmaninov’s mighty Second Symphony. Every performance is an adventure, and it’s the perfect climax to a concert packed with melody.

‘Tetzlaff, playing as if his life depended on it, transported his audience from the Hungarian gypsy camp to the salons of Vienna. It was the trip of lifetime.’ (Independent on Sunday)

‘The conductor Sebastian Weigle makes sure that the beauty of the lusciously detailed scoring emerges very powerfully’ (The Guardian)