Brussels Philharmonic returns for a second visit this season with a programme full of romance and drama. The orchestra’s Music Director, Stéphane Denève, is joined by the Dutch violinist Liza Ferschtman.

Bernstein‘s Serenade is perhaps his most famous non-theatrical work and has been performed by many great violinists. It is based on Plato’s Symposium, the text in which he introduced the concept of Platonic love. Bernstein described his violin showpiece as ‘a series of related statements in praise of love’.

Jazz and dance rhythms, finger clicking, not to mention a police whistle are not ordinarily heard at symphony concerts but expect to hear them all during a performance of West Side Story, Bernstein’s modern-day, big-city adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. In 1960, Bernstein drew from it an orchestral suite of Symphonic Dances which follows the principal episodes of the drama.