It was Schoenberg who defined Brahms's province as the "epic-lyric", a phrase suggesting grandeur of conception allied to intimacy of expression. If any performance of the Violin Concerto demonstrated what he meant, it was this one, given by Frank Peter Zimmermann with the Philharmonia under its principal conductor Christoph von Dohnanyi. Zimmermann's technically impregnable reading was founded on a refulgent tone that sent the concerto's more passionate themes soaring out into the auditorium, but there was no shortage of refinement for its more tender moments. Dohnanyi shaped the overall structure with visionary conviction in an interpretation underpinned by alert playing from all sections of the orchestra, with the strings on especially glamorous form.

The Eroica Symphony that followed didn't quite match it. While Dohnanyi's lucid textures allowed plenty of detail to register, his tempo relationships in the slow movement and finale were mismanaged and the overall impact too close to Beethoven-lite.

The earlier concert in the free Music of Today series focused on the American composer and clarinettist Derek Bermel, whose diverse output shows just how many types of music can impact on a contemporary musician, from classical to jazz, from R&B to hip-hop, as well as innumerable folk traditions. Thracian Games, which Bermel played himself, is a steadily rising crescendo of solo clarinet hyper-activity, drawn from folk songs he transcribed in a region of Bulgaria. If Bartok is the obvious model, there's something distinctive not only in the piece's use of indigenous rhythms and melodic shapes but also in its increasingly manic attitude. Even more striking was Soul Garden for viola and string quintet, whose origins lie in African-American gospel music. With soloist Rachel Roberts emulating the vocalism of an alto gospel singer answered by the church baritone represented by an ensemble cellist, the result lies in the tradition of Aaron Copland's popular Americana in its immediacy and sense of respectful parody.