At the centre of this Beethoven evening are the Third Piano Concerto and the Choral Fantasy – two works that make Beethoven’s dramatic force and his utopian idea of community tangible in different ways.

The Third Piano Concerto is in C minor, a key that in Beethoven often stands for tension, energy and existential drama. Its heroic tone is answered in the slow movement by a remote, almost otherworldly calm.

In the Choral Fantasy, the perspective widens. The work begins with a piano solo and gradually grows into a great tutti with orchestra, soloists and choir. At the end stands a hymn to “peace and joy” – and with it an early form of the hymn to joy that Beethoven would later make world-famous in the Ninth Symphony.

David Fray, one of the most distinctive pianists of our time, is the soloist. Lars Corijn conducts the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester and the Zürcher Sing-Akademie.