Danielle de Neise is at Kings Place [Chris Dunlop/Decca]

SO-called “late works” get invested with peculiar significance in music – wisdom, insight and the golden glow of old age – even though too many great composers died young, in their 30s/40s, with no necessary sense of their careers in endgame.

Brahms, though, was a different matter. He survived into his 60s, and was ready to retire until the virtuoso playing of a clarinettist, Richard Muhlfeld, drew him back to composition. The result was a whole batch of works for clarinet that truly count as late and great. And they’re the basis for a Queen Elizabeth Hall concert on Jan 13 – billed as Late Brahms – given by the latterday clarinet virtuoso Michael Collins with a group of musician friends. It may be winter but you’ll get an evening bathed in warm autumnal colours. southbankcentre.co.uk

• Next-door at the Royal Festival Hall on Jan 13 the London Philharmonic Orchestra play music by the veteran Hollywood film composer John Williams. But alongside the sweeping cinemascopic stuff you’ll find a concert score: his 2nd Violin Concerto, being given its UK premiere by the superstar instrumentalist for whom it was written, Anne-Sophie Mutter. A night of dazzle. southbankcentre.co.uk

• Every year Kings Place, the enterprising concert venue behind King’s Cross station, has an overall theme to the season’s programming. For 2024 it’s Scotland. And the year of Scotland Unwrapped, as it’s designated, starts Jan 12 with an appearance by jazz pianist Fergus McCreadie, who (no prizes for guessing), hails from the land of the sporran. That the theme continues next night, Jan 13, with Leeds-born sitar-player Jasdeep Singh Degun sounds a touch disorienting, but I guess it celebrates Scottish diversity. And in any event, he’s a beguiling star of the Indian classical circuit, so not to missed. With or without tartan. kingsplace.co.uk

• Someone Kings Place has booked for later in 2024 is the brilliant Japanese-Scottish guitarist Sean Shibe – but if you’re impatient to see him, he’s at LSO St Luke’s on Jan 18, playing a French-Spanish programme. barbican.org.uk. And it’s a good week for guitar enthusiasts, because Miloš Karadaglić – so celebrated these days he drops his surname and is known simply as Milos – plays Cadogan Hall, Jan 17: an all-baroque programme with the period ensemble Arcangelo, details cadoganhall.com. If it came to choosing, I’d say Shibe is the more profound musician, Milos the more charismatic. But neither disappoints. And if you’re keen, you can do both.

• When it comes to charisma, the soprano Danielle de Niese delivers big-time and can be relied on to do so on Jan 17 when she gives a Kings Place recital of Gounod, Handel, Puccini. Expect glitter, shimmer and seductive singing. kingsplace.co.uk

• City Music Foundation’s concerts in hidden-away livery halls are back after their Christmas break, with French pianist Antoine Preat and cellist Geithrudur Guomundsdottir (who can only be Icelandic) at Mercer’s Hall, 1pm, Jan 17. citymusicfoundation.org

• And don’t forget, as flagged before, that the new Royal Opera staging of Elektra opens Jan 12. Richard Strauss’s most abrasive score invariably feels like audible assault and battery – but on the somehow therapeutic terms the ancient Greeks referred to as “catharsis”. So it’s beneficial, sort of. Runs to Jan 30. roh.org.uk