The new season starts. Orchestras around the world are tuning up and gearing up for an inspired autumn as Hélène Grimaud opens the season with the Russian National Orchestra and Mikhail Pletnev in Moscow’s famous Tchaikovsky Concert Hall playing Brahms’ Piano Concerto no. 1 on Friday 6 September.

Brahms has always been a composer close to Grimaud’s heart and the imminent release of her new recording of Brahms’ 1st and 2nd piano concertos on 30 September on Deutsche Grammophon marks a special occasion. “With Brahms, you often get that feeling of a landscape, a panorama, something on a grand scale,” commented Grimaud. “And then there’s that strong sense of poignancy as well. When the drama occurs, it focuses on that moment when everything changed, when a life was transformed. After which things would never be the same again.”

Taking Brahms back to Hamburg – to the city where the composer was born 120 years ago and where Hélène Grimaud’s 15 September performance will be broadcast live on North German Radio (NDR) – launches a particularly special season which pays homage to one of Germany’s greatest composers. “To perform the 1st concerto, is to be directly absorbed into the drama of the young Brahms’ life; the 2nd concerto offers a journey of intimate introspection. Together the works present a single portrait of immense nobility and compassion”.