Live, Video: Kritiken zu klassischen Konzerten, Opern, Ballett und Tanz finden | O Solitude, Z 406

An eclectic programme running from Purcell to Nina Simone kept with the Festival's tradition of presenting up-and-coming classical musicians.

A varied programme of harpsichord pieces interleaves with songs from Shakespeare and the following century.

Scotland's Dunedin Consort offers a radiant program of Purcell and his peers.

Le jeune ensemble créé en 2010 par Juliette Guignard et Louis-Noël Bestion de Camboulas montre son exceptionnelle maturité dans un concert intégralement consacré à Purcell.

Andreas Scholl and Collegium 1704 team up for a refreshing treatment of an early repertoire.

If you like your Purcell spiced up with some jazz improvisation and Middle-Eastern flavours, Philippe Jaroussky and L’Arpeggiata’s gig was for you. 

If one had idly wondered how a programme of English love songs, sung by a German, would be received by a Norwegian audience, in a wet and windy Bergen, the answer came loud and clear at this week's International Festival.

Right, we had our fun with the lively Scholl/Jaroussky concert in the Barbican in December, now for the serious stuff, Andreas Scholl singing the Purcell his admirers have wanted to hear for years. With one or two exceptions, the programme concentrated on Purcell's quieter, deeper and more reflective repertoire.

The countertenor voice seems to polarise opinion like no other - you either love it or hate it, there is little middle ground - and even amongst the aficionados (in whose number I count myself), there can be strong, almost tribal allegiances to one school or another and sometimes to individual proponents.