Live, Video: Kritiken zu klassischen Konzerten, Opern, Ballett und Tanz finden | Katya Apekisheva

Charles Owen and Katya Apekisheva give an enthralling performance of one of Messiaen's wartime epics, and vivid evocations of two pieces by Sir George Benjamin.

Katya Apekisheva and friends made a persuasive case for Hummel's Piano Quintet to be heard as a transitional grand romantic concerto deserving of belonging in such august company.

With more than a hundred Academy students hanging over their seats at the side of the hall like their equivalents in The Red Shoes 70 years ago, nine of the world's finest musicians took on Schubert in Lisbon.

Still only in its second year, the London Piano Festival has already established itself as a major player in the capital’s music scene.

A remarkable evening of exceptionally fine pianism and inventive programming, featuring seven of the UK's leading pianists in rich and varied repertoire.

Oxford May Music has been fusing arts and science for six years now. Thursday’s concert was evidence of this interdisciplinary ethos. Themed around “The Planets”, the evening combined a two-piano version of Gustav Holst’s suite with a talk by physicist Brian Cox.

St George’s Bristol is an extraordinary venue. Renowned for its unbeatable acoustic amongst performers and listeners alike, there is something unique about it that cannot be attributed to its sonic qualities alone.

The Brahms cello sonatas in E minor and F major are two pillars of the cello repertoire and represent, rightly so, the first career peak for performers. Together they cover the full range of emotion, from dark, brooding introspection to the playful nature of the middle movements.

An introductory reading by local writer Philip Pullman was an appropriate introduction to the “Dusk to Dawn” concert, one of the last in this year’s Oxford Chamber Music Festival (themed “Fairytales and Fantasy”). The collision of a light-hearted surface with darker undertones was not just in Pullman’s retelling of the Grimm stories, but pervaded Artistic Director Priya Mitchell’s programming.

Pianists Charles Owen and Katya Apekisheva presented a lively recital programme in what might be better described as ‘an orchestral concert for two pianos’; such was the range of sounds the two were able to conjure from their instruments.Milhaud’s Scaramouche Suite was a frothy, joyful opener, as one might expect from a member of ‘Les Six’ in a work based on theatrical music.

The cellist Natalie Clein was at the centre of this concert of Schumann’s chamber music, given as a part of the Schumann bicentenary celebrations at Kings Place. The programme explored works from different periods of Schumann’s creative life: two works for cello and piano from 1849, the turbulent Piano Trio No. 3 in G minor from 1851, and the joyous Piano Quartet in E flat major from 1842.