A stirring performance by Víkingur Ólafsson of a piano concerto written amid a period of great sorrow. I think we could relate

On Wednesday evening, I went to the Royal Festival Hall on London’s Southbank Centre to hear the Icelandic pianist, Víkingur Ólafsson, play Brahms’ Piano Concerto No 1 , the tickets for which I’d booked aeons ago, in ignorance of the future significance of the date. Ólafsson’s marvellous name conjures someone ruggedly bearded, a tame puffin or guillemot perhaps sitting on the shoulder of his tufty jumper, when in fact he looks more like one of the cast of Mad Men . But either way, to see him on stage is incredibly exciting. He plays with such fervour, leaning into the orchestra whenever his fingers are idle, his body like a flag in high wind.

Ólafsson’s encore was immaculately well judged. “This is a prayer for the world,” he said, before giving the crowd his version of Ave Maria, composed by his countryman Sigvaldi Kaldalóns. Don’t worry: this isn’t one of those awful hopey, joy-is-a-strategy columns. We’re where we are now because one lot of people is wholly unable to imagine how another lot of people thinks; it would be sensible of me not to make any assumptions about how you felt last Wednesday.