Written for the young virtuoso Samuel Dushkin, Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto was modelled on Bach, who inspired the bouncy motor rhythms of the opening Toccata, the beautiful cantilena of the second Aria and the leaping lines of the final Capriccio.

With its exceptional rhythmic energy and blissfully ardent slow movement, Schubert’s mighty Ninth Symphony, better known as the ‘Great’, is his orchestral masterpiece. Written in 1828, the year of his death, it was not performed until 1839, conducted by Mendelssohn, after being discovered by Schumann who intensely admired its ‘heavenly length’.