Two composers who, in terms of pure sound, you might think belong on different aesthetic planes, yet who were both deeply pre-occupied by the musical tradition they inherited, and sought in their own way to absorb and renew it; this program brings them together in a fascinating evening of complementarity and juxtaposition.  In his essay Brahms the Progressive, Schoenberg described his predecessor as ‘a great innovator in the realm of musical language,’ and in Brahms’ Op. 56 Variations you hear him ringing the changes on a theme attributed to Haydn, a composer he deeply revered. But Brahms had a special affection for Schubert, and once told a friend: ‘My love for Schubert is a very serious one, probably just because it is not a fleeting fancy. Where is genius like his, which soars aloft so boldly and surely?’ The sequence of little waltzes you hear in this concert – also for…