Serenity and Seriousness: Joy and James Lisney at St John's, Smith Square

Winter has struck Bristol pre-emptively this year, and finding a nice, warm place to hide on a Sunday morning is a good way to lessen the hold of its icy clutches.

Imagine, for a moment, that you're an 18th century German or French baron deciding what you're going to do with your evening. You might do worse, perhaps, than to invite a couple of dozen friends to your well-appointed sitting room, and bring in one of the great musicians of the day to talk to you about his favourite music and play it to you.

The contrasting delights of Schumann, Brahms and Dvořák are powerfully evoked in performances of charm, eloquence and high drama from the Philharmonia, continuing the orchestra’s 80th anniversary celebrations. 

The music of Glinka, Stravinsky, Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky fills Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall with mystery, intrigue and jollity. 

Seong-Jin Cho’s premise in Prokofiev is compelling – to reconcile Russian gravitational attack and monumental construction with clarity, colour and contrapuntal legibility.

From Haydn and Beethoven to Weinberg and Rachmaninov, Marc-André Hamelin reveals the piano sonata as a form of breadth, flexibility and expressive power.