Théotime Langlois de Swarte [Marco Borggreve]

WHATEVER you’re giving up for Lent, make sure it isn’t music – which, far from being an indulgence, can be full of good advice. And for an example, try Handel’s oratorio Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno (a mouthful, I know) which plays at Wigmore Hall, Feb 28.

It’s moral fable in which the singers represent abstract qualities, with Beauty (a young woman) being led astray by Pleasure (a young man) while Time and Disillusion wag their fingers and eventually persuade her, through two hours of severe reasoning, to seek higher things. Hence the “Triumph” of the title. And if it sounds preachy, there are indeed moments when you can’t help looking at your watch.

But they come with the sublime distraction of Handel’s music. And as the performers here are the impressive period band La Nuova Musica, with a choice line-up of voices, it really is something to experience.

There’s a likely run on tickets; but if you can’t get in, the evening will go out live on the Wigmore’s website (accessible free of charge!) and stay there for several weeks afterwards. Details: wigmore-hall.org.uk

• Something else at the Wigmore that will also go out on its website is a concert, Mar 3, by the young violinist with the most magnificent name on the classical circuit: Théotime Langlois de Swarte. Emerging through the ranks of William Christie’s period band Les Arts Florissants, he’s now an international star – throwing fresh light on Vivaldi and his contemporaries, which is what he’ll do in this Wigmore recital with harpsichordist Justin Taylor. If you ever bought the popular idea that Vivaldi wrote the same violin music a hundred times, let Théotime persuade you otherwise. wigmore-hall.org.uk

• There’s no shortage of star pianists passing through London this week, the starriest of all being Yuja Wang with the LSO at the Barbican, Mar 1, where her fame counterbalances the box-office risk of playing a little-known concerto by Rautavaara. barbican.org.uk

Meanwhile, Behzod Abduraimov plays Strauss and Brahms at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Feb 27 (southbankcentre.co.uk); Piotr Anderszewski plays Schubert, Feb 27, at the Wigmore (wigmore-hall-org.uk); Vikingur Olafsson marks the 100th birthday of composer Gyorgy Kurtag at the QEH, Mar 1 (southbankcentre.co.uk); and András Schiff is at the Wigmore, Mar 4 – though I can’t say what he’s playing because Schiff has become such a legendary figure, he no longer feels the need to announce his programmes in advance. You get what he feels like on the day.

• Until last year when he retired, Mark van der Wiel had been principal clarinet with the Philharmonia Orchestra for an astonishing quarter-century. And on Mar 5 at the Royal Festival Hall, the orchestra pays tribute to that achievement, with a concert in which he plays a new concerto by Jonathan Dove, specially commissioned, as well as the hauntingly beautiful one by Aaron Copland. southbankcentre.co.uk

• Finally, Hampstead Chamber Choir have an ambitious concert, Feb 28, that features Schutz’s so-called German Requiem alongside a new work by composer Gregory Spears that celebrates gardens as a place of refuge. As the gardens it celebrates include the biblical one at Gethsemane and Derek Jarman’s at Dungeness, it evidently takes a sweeping view. hampsteadchamberchoir.org