Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro Overture is the glorious opening salvo of one of the most iconic operas in history. Ranked by Classic FM as amongst the most famous pieces of classical music in history, the explosive outbursts of the melody perfectly reflect the chaos of Count and Countess Almaviva’s wedding which forms the centrepiece of this opera.

Valse Triste, by contrast, was written for a drama titled simply ‘Death’. Translated as ‘Sad Waltz’, this haunting and beautifully evocative piece stretches across the emotional canon, taking its listener on a journey through grim formality and joyous exuberance before reaching its overwhelming climax.

Following this will be a performance of Tchaikovsky’s outstanding Violin Concerto, a piece which has permeated deep into the cultural subconscious through its use in everything from Monty Python to The Goonies. Written during his turbulent marriage to a former student and six months after wading into the freezing Moscow River, this piece acts as Tchaikovsky’s escape as he distills his overwhelming emotion into a singularly epic masterpiece. The evening then concludes with Mendelssohn’s Scottish symphony, featuring the impressions of the “comfortless, inhospitable solitude” of a Scottish walking holiday – a work of deep sensibility and masculine melancholy that grew from the emotions that the stern Scottish landscape and history engendered in the composer.