classical music & opera
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40 years of the Oliviers: Maria Friedman picks her 10 favourite winnersAhead of BBC Concert Orchestra’s Olivier celebration directed by and starring Maria Friedman, the singer picks her favourite shows to have featured in the prestigious awards -
Håkan HardenbergerBreakfast with the Bachs, rehearsals with Boulez; applauding is fine, but karaoke most definitely not. The Swedish trumpet virtuoso on his musical loves on and off the platform
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Scotish Opera/Music Theatre Wales's The Devil InsideNovelist Louise Welsh and composer Stuart MacRae’s adaptation of a Faustian story by Robert Louis Stevenson is as economical as it is engaging -
Béla Fleck and the BBCSSO, Celtic Connections festivalThe charismatic banjo master flirted, duelled and traded melodies with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in a playful, fairground ride of a show
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Andrea Chénier, Opera NorthRafael Rojas, Annemarie Kremer and Robert Hayward give riveting performances in Annabel Arden’s thoughtful new production of Giordano’s French revolution-set tragedy
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Beethoven: Complete String Quartets Vol 5 CD review – fervour and flairThe Quartetto di Cremona come into their own in the radiant Op 29 String Quintet
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Mendelssohn in Birmingham Vol 4 CD review – luminous and mercurialJennifer Pike combines beauty of tone and exceptional technique in Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto
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Robert De Visée: Intimité et grandeur CD review – exquisite theorbo worksTheorbo virtuoso Fred Jacobs conjures up the court of Louis XIV quite beautifully
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Ginastera: Orchestral Works Vol 1 CD review – pounding cinematic soundsAlberto Ginastera’s many works inspired by his Argentine homeland receive an atmospheric, cinematic treatment with foot-stomping gaucho rhythms
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Boulez changed how we listen to the music of our timeThe polemicist’s precision and lucidity illuminated contemporary music in a way that few other conductors have even approached. It is this that will be his legacy
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Opera company begins new year in offstage turmoilChorus contract renegotiations and limited productions are not doomsday scenario, says management, but a way to help company remodel and grow
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you may have missed
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He was one of the naughtiest of great artistsMcBurney, creator of multimedia performance A Pierre Dream, remembers his impish friend – the conductor, composer and provocateur
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Dates of key Mozart symphonies are wrong, claims music scholarDays of looking at crossed-out dates on original manuscripts with magnifying glass reveals different dates on five works from composer’s early period
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Simon Rattle and Peter Sellars on Pelléas et Mélisande: 'It's as creepy as Hitchcock'The orchestra doubles as a forest and the heroine dies among the violins … Peter Sellars and Simon Rattle reveal how they’re taking Debussy’s dark and disturbing opera Pelléas et Mélisande to new heights
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How Stockhausen seduced the BeatlesThe Beatles’ Revolution 9 brought experimental music to a global audience, but their radio soundworld wouldn’t have been possible without Stockhausen’s ‘music of the whole world’
guides
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Tom Service's survey of the 50 symphonies that changed musical historyTom Service's survey of the 50 symphonies that changed classical music
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A guide to contemporary classical musicTom Service introduces 50 composers from the contemporary classical music scene
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Live review Nigel Kennedy – still fist bumping, still virtuosic