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Another show of themes and variations – this time with music by Anton Arensky, Cesar Franck, and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, an Anglo-African composer whose work deserves to be heard more often.

Sir Thomas Beecham had flair, on and off the podium. His considerable experience in opera gave him a remarkable sense of proportion, pacing and – in the best sense of the word – theatricality. That made Beecham performances anything but routine. In this show, we will hear two live Beecham performances with the Royal Philharmonic, including a thrilling Brahms Symphony No. 2. Wagner’s Rienzi Overture provides the ideal first course.

In an episode called “Surprise Symphonies” we have a Haydn symphony, but not the one you might expect, plus the one and only symphony by French composer Ernest Chausson. These works are two symphonies in B-flat, by two composers who were both 35 years old at the time.

Otto Klemperer was a giant among conductors in both stature and musical insight. He overcame enormous personal challenges, escaped the Nazi regime, endured crippling injuries and still made music that inspired millions. His signature work was Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony and we’ll hear his legendary 1955 recording with the Philharmonia Orchestra – judged by many to be the best ever recorded.

Wilhelm Furtwängler was a brilliant conductor, but a controversial genius, whose legacy still inspires debate. His remarkable musicianship is on display in three recordings of music by Weber, Schumann, and Beethoven – all central to the German musical canon to which he was so dedicated. This series of five programs of these great conductors ends with perhaps the most enigmatic and most interesting interpreter of the group.

In the first of a new periodic series, we explore great music inspired by the immortal bard. The works of Shakespeare have inspired composers for centuries, and there’s a wealth of great music as a result. In this show we’ll feature music by Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Raff, and Walton. We will hear how these great literary works were imagined in sound.

This week we have two marvelous works by Johannes Brahms not originally composed for orchestra. But when reimagined for a full symphony orchestra, they are even more glorious. One was transformed by Brahms himself, and the other by composer Bright Sheng. With the resources and colors of a full symphony orchestra, we hear Brahms at his most magnificent.

Bedřich Smetana’s “Ma Vlast” is one of the most ravishing orchestral works ever written. One writer observed that “Ma Vlast” has “history imbedded in every detail” and that the music is “Liszt’s tone poems at their most glorious.” No wonder that this music made Smetana a national hero of the Czech people. We’ll hear it realized in a magnificent recording by the Czech Philharmonic conducted by Václav Talich.

This week we feature two of the greatest compositional prodigies and piano virtuosi the world has ever known. While both Mendelssohn and Mozart died in their 30s, they each created a lifetime of incredible music. We’ll hear a stunning concerto by Mendelssohn, and a chamber version of a Mozart concerto that was a particular favorite of Beethoven, and one he frequently performed.

Three contrasting works by Beethoven make up this week’s show: a Romance for violin and orchestra arranged for cello, a stunning recording of his Fourth Piano Concerto with legendary pianist Robert Casadesus and the Concertgebouw Orchestra, then a world-shaking fugue that shocked listeners at its premiere. We’ll hear Beethoven at his most intimate, his most virtuostic, and – being the innovator he was – his most thundering and brilliant.