Giordano Bellincampi opens the season with Beethoven’s grandest piano concerto. Beethoven didn’t call this titanic piece ‘Emperor’, but whoever did was absolutely right. New Zealander Claire Cowan’s bright, breezy overture provides the perfect entree.

Strauss’ magnificent tone-poem depicts the mighty deeds of a great hero — his battles with his enemies, his love affairs, his retirement from the world — and it’s a mere detail that the hero happens to be Strauss himself!