The Stuttgart Philharmonic visits The Bridgewater Hall on Friday 20 November 2026, bringing three of classical music’s best-loved works to Manchester. Under the baton of Mariano Chiacchiarini, the orchestra is joined by rising star pianist Jeneba Kanneh-Mason, making her International Concert Series debut in Mozart’s dramatic Piano Concerto No.20.

Founded in 1924, the Stuttgart Philharmonic has been at the heart of musical life in the German city for more than a century. Today, its 88 musicians perform more than 120 events each year, from major symphonic concerts to chamber music, opera and international tours. The orchestra has travelled widely across Europe and beyond, bringing the great orchestral repertoire to audiences around the world.

Leading the orchestra is Argentine-Italian conductor Mariano Chiacchiarini, whose international career began when he won first prize at the Teatro Colón conducting competition in Buenos Aires at the age of 25. Since then, he has worked with leading orchestras and musicians across Europe and internationally, earning recognition for his versatility and musicianship.

Mendelssohn’s Scottish inspiration

The concert opens with Mendelssohn’s The Hebrides, also known as Fingal’s Cave, a wonderfully atmospheric portrait of the Scottish coastline.

In 1829, the 20-year-old Mendelssohn travelled through Scotland with his friend Karl Klingemann, visiting the Highlands and Hebridean islands. The dramatic landscapes made a lasting impression on the young composer, inspiring both his Scottish Symphony and The Hebrides overture.

During the journey, Mendelssohn wrote to his family, including a musical sketch that would become the opening of the overture. Its gently rising and falling phrases seem to capture the movement of the sea, while the orchestra builds a picture of crashing waves, swirling winds and the rugged beauty of the islands.

Although inspired by a particular place, The Hebrides is much more than a musical landscape painting. In just ten minutes, Mendelssohn creates a remarkably vivid atmosphere, moving between moments of quiet reflection and the full force of the orchestra.

Johannes Brahms admired the work so much that he reportedly declared he would gladly give up everything he had composed to have written something like it.

Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.20, written in 1785, is one of his most dramatic works for piano and orchestra. Composed in the unusual key of D minor, it opens with a restless, unsettling orchestral introduction before the soloist enters.

The concerto was written at the height of Mozart’s success in Vienna, where he was celebrated as both a composer and virtuoso pianist. He gave the first performance himself in February 1785, conducting from the keyboard.

Its dark, turbulent character sets it apart from many of Mozart’s other piano concertos. The beautiful slow movement offers a moment of calm, although even here the serenity is interrupted by a sudden outburst of drama. The finale returns to the concerto’s stormy mood before an unexpected change to D major brings the work to a brilliant, triumphant close.

The concerto made a particularly strong impression on Beethoven, who admired and performed it, and later wrote his own cadenzas for the work.

Brahms and the language of love

After the interval comes Brahms’ Symphony No.3, a work that combines tremendous energy with some of the most tender and intimate music he ever wrote.

Completed in the summer of 1883, the symphony was written while Brahms was staying in Wiesbaden, a German spa town overlooking the Rhine. It was a period of extraordinary creativity, and the resulting work became one of his most personal and expressive orchestral compositions.

The symphony opens with three powerful notes, F-A-F, widely understood to represent Brahms’ personal motto, Frei aber froh – ‘free but happy’.  These notes form the foundation of a work filled with contrasts, from its confident opening to moments of yearning, reflection and uncertainty.

Its third movement, Poco allegretto, is among the most beautiful in all Brahms’ music. Rather than the lively scherzo often found in a symphony, Brahms gives us a gently flowing, melancholy melody, first heard in the cellos. It has become one of his most recognisable musical themes.

The symphony’s conclusion is equally unusual. Instead of ending in a blaze of orchestral triumph, Brahms gradually brings the music back to the peaceful atmosphere of its opening, allowing the work to fade away in a moment of quiet resolution.

Brahms’ friend and fellow composer Antonín Dvořák was deeply moved by the symphony, describing it as a work filled with love that made the heart open wide.

From the windswept Scottish coast to Mozart’s musical drama and Brahms’ deeply personal Romantic expression, this is a programme of three very different masterpieces, each revealing the extraordinary power of the orchestra.

With the Stuttgart Philharmonic, Mariano Chiacchiarini and Jeneba Kanneh-Mason together on stage, it promises to be another memorable evening in The Bridgewater Hall’s 30th anniversary International Concert Series.