For this special top-class concert, Heidelberger Frühling has invited the greats of the international classical music scene to the Heidelberg Congress Center: The London Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of new chief conductor Antonio Pappano, will kick off a glittering festival of sound with the stormy sounds of Berlioz' overture "The Corsair". The violin virtuoso Lisa Batiashvili, celebrated for her soulful playing, interprets the first violin concerto by the Polish composer Karol Szymanowski, composed in 1916, a refined and sensuous piece of music with ecstatic moments. The highlight is Hector Berlioz's programmatic masterpiece, the "Symphonie fantastique", in which dreamlike and pastoral scenes are combined with the Dies irae parody and a grotesque witches' sabbath to create a grandiose symphonic tableau.