With a three-part Brahms project, the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra is focusing on programming this season. It starts with Elisabeth Leonskaja, the revered grand dame of the Russian piano school, with the second piano concerto by Brahms. As a “concert with a small Scherzo” Brahms mischievously announced the new work – because the opposite was true: It was not only the most extensive piano concert to date, but also an unusually capital chunk – highly virtuosic and highly romantic, heartwarming intimately and passionately vital , Meanwhile, the Fourth Symphony, one of the most poignant works in Romantic symphonics, sounds different. Rebellion and resignation are here felt, disappointment well and finally an almost defiant Dareinfinden. “Free, but lonely »was the name of Brahms’s life’s destiny. Towards the end, the experience of loneliness may have outweighed. Perhaps that’s why in the final movement of the Fourth, he borrowed money from the great Johann Sebastian Bach – with the cantata “After You, Lord, Demands Me” – support and consolation.