Haydn, Mozart, Gershwin and John Adams | London Symphony Orchestra

High spirits and summer sun, as Sir Simon Rattle kicks up his heels in music by Haydn, Mozart, and Gershwin – and introduces the latest show stopper from John Adams.

‘The world is always better with Haydn,’ says Sir Simon Rattle, and tonight the exuberance and wit of Haydn’s 86th Symphony is merely the curtain-raiser for an all-laughing, all-dancing concert of Mozart, Gershwin and John Adams: music that spans three centuries without losing its smile.

After all, you’re never far from a party with George Gershwin, and tonight he takes to the dance floor, first in Havana and then in Paris. But good times are meant to be shared, so we’re delighted to welcome the great Imogen Cooper, in a concerto that shows Mozart at his most brilliant, as well as his most poignant. And there’s a swinging, sizzling new postcard from America from another old friend of the LSO, John Adams.