Our 2024 concert series commences with the sublime pairing of Anna Goldsworthy, Director of the Elder Conservatorium of Music, and Konstantin Shamray, much-loved alumnus and adjunct senior lecturer. In 1824 twenty-seven-year-old Schubert was present at the awe-inspiring premiere of Beethoven’s Ninth symphony in Vienna before returning to Zseliz that summer to work again for the Esterházy family as their music teacher. Whilst there he wrote this extended four movement work, his largest in the genre, in which Robert Schumann immediately sensed the powerful influence of Beethoven, labelling it a “piano version” of a symphony.