The NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover makes a rare visit to The Bridgewater Hall on Monday 12 October 2026 – the first concert in our season-long celebration of Beethoven, 200 years after his death.
There is something special about hearing a German orchestra play Beethoven and Brahms. These composers are in the blood of ensembles like the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover; one of Germany’s most distinguished radio orchestras, founded in Hannover in 1950 and now recognised internationally as an ensemble of the highest rank.
The orchestra gives around 100 concerts each season, almost all broadcast on Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) radio and available to listeners worldwide. Concert tours have taken it to Asia and South America, and it has performed repeatedly at the Royal Albert Hall in London, the Musikverein in Vienna, and the Great Festival Hall in Salzburg. This October, it comes to Manchester.
Leading the orchestra is Chief Conductor Stanislav Kochanovsky, who took up the post at the start of the 2024/25 season. Born in St Petersburg in 1981, Kochanovsky graduated with distinction from the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatoire in three fields – choral conducting, organ, and opera-symphonic conducting – before building an international career that has taken him to the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra and the Philharmonia Orchestra in London. He is considered one of the most refined conductors of his generation.
A pivotal moment for Beethoven
The programme opens with Beethoven’s Egmont overture – music of triumph and defiance, written to accompany Goethe’s play about the Dutch nobleman who gave his life resisting oppression. It’s a stirring start.
Then comes the Fourth Piano Concerto, completed at one of the most pivotal moments in Beethoven’s turbulent life. His hearing was failing rapidly, and the concerto’s premiere in 1808 would be the last time he ever performed in public with an orchestra. That legendary concert (a marathon programme that also saw the premieres of his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies) marked a turning point: the end of Beethoven the performer, and the beginning of Beethoven the composer in absolute command.
Stepping into Beethoven’s shoes tonight is pianist Lise de la Salle, brings dazzling pianism and captivating musicality to the stage. One of the leading French pianists of her generation, she has won international acclaim for her exhilarating performances with the world’s finest orchestras. Her celebrated recordings reveal an artist of remarkable imagination, colour, sensitivity and expressive power.
Brahms at the summit
After the interval, Brahms’ Fourth Symphony. Beethoven’s influence can be heard throughout Brahms’ final symphony, as can that of Bach, whose music Brahms studied deeply. The finale is a passacaglia, built over a repeating bass line that Brahms borrowed from Bach’s Cantata BWV 150, and around it he constructs thirty variations of extraordinary richness and emotional depth.
It is Brahms’ own work through and through; a towering achievement that stands comparison with the greatest symphonies in the canon. Writing about its finale, conductor and composer Felix Weingartner described it as “a veritable orgy of destruction.”
From the triumphant blaze of the Egmont overture to the shattering conclusion of Brahms’ Fourth, this is a programme of pure classical firepower – and the perfect way to begin our Beethoven 200 celebrations.
NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover
Stanislav Kochanovsky conductor | Lise de la Salle piano | International Concert Series