Sir András Schiff plays Beethoven Piano Concertos 2 & 1

After the success of our Brahms Piano Concerto series with Sir András Schiff in 2019, we are delighted to welcome back our Principal Guest Artist for a three-night series of Beethoven’s Piano Concertos.

‘The Wilderness Pleases’ is inspired by one of the many influential pieces of work to come out of the Enlightenment era; Shaftesbury’s ‘The Moralists.’

In the book, the main character Theocles describes the terror of encountering a group of crocodiles in an Egyptian desert. After escaping the monsters, he is overcome with a desire to admire them as wondrous creatures of the natural world. He says,

‘let us fly to the vast deserts of these parts […] ghastly and hideous as they appear they want not their peculiar beauties. Wilderness pleases.’