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Born to a Basque mother just ten miles from the Spanish border, Ravel excelled at authentic Spanish flavours as heard in this splendid festival concert by the Orchestre National de France.

Don Quixote provides the inspiration for songs by Ravel and Ibert, the high point of a bitty programme in contrast to an early evening recital which followed the perfect trajectory.

At the Festival Ravel, Bertrand Chamayou, Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Hyunji Kim perform all the solo piano works at the Église Saint-Vincent, a stone’s throw from the house where Ravel was born.

Liv Redpath and Bertrand Chamayou shine at the Lucerne Festival in this celebration of Pierre Boulez's legacy. 

Intimate playing from Sean Shibe, a deconstruction of Maria Callas’ vibrato and a deeply committed Boulez mid 20th-century masterpiece.

The charismatic Ustina Dubitsky leads EIC in first-rate performances, including a world premiere from Katherine Balch, to support of Wigmore Hall's flagship ‘Voices of Today’ initiative.

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra and its future Music Director revel in a Brahms piano concerto with ideal collaborator Daniil Trifonov and an energetic Dvořák 7. 

A BBC day of talks and concerts yields delight and revelation in equal measure. 

The JACK Quartet frames its recital at Symphony Space on Manhattan’s Upper West Side around the Pierre Boulez centennial. 

Musical cross-pollination came to life in London Sinfonietta’s electrifying performance, in a seamless blend of theatre, history and virtuosic playing.

A masterful performance of Boulez's Notations crown a memorable evening rich delights, including rapturous Debussy and three very fine world premieres. 

A rare performance of Boulez' Rituel is followed by four Ravel works, including a fine Piano Concerto in G major featuring Bertrand Chamayou. 

High contrasts of light and darkness make a special event in Boulez, Benjamin and Brahms at the Barbican. 

Before heading to the Far East for a 12-concert honeymoon, the nuptials of the LSO and new Chief Conductor Sir Antonio Pappano were completed in the fourth concert at the Barbican. 

Some conductors get better with age, ripening like fine wines, but age wearies others. Daniel Barenboim’s decline is difficult to bear.

A spellbinding journey as Emmanuel Pahud plays a 70-minute solo programme in a near capacity audience in the 1600-seater concert hall.

It was, very much, Kigawa’s recital – not Boulez’, not Ligeti’s. The force of personality might have gotten in the way had the flair on pianoforte not been so strong. 

The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra presents a superb programme executed with power and urgency to herald the return of public music-making at the Pierre Boulez Saal.

After four evenings and ten world premieres, Pierre Boulez Saal's A Festival of New Music comes to a haunting end.

The third concert of A Festival of New Music also suggests the conflicts and split personalities which may come from extended isolation. 

Daniel Barenboim, Emmanuel Pahud and select musicians continue their brief odyssey into new music with three striking and stimulating world premieres and a welcome touch of Boulez.

Bold and colourful invocations of twentieth-century classics from Ensemble Modern and composer George Benjamin.

Celebrating Debussy on the 100th anniversary of his death, this programme played to the strengths of the LSO under the energetic direction of François-Xavier Roth.

An anniversary gala concert with historic references worth the hype.

After a 34 year hiatus from the Konzerthaus stage, the Toronto Symphony gave a knockout performance that had everything in spades

A typically adventurous programme "curated" by Esa-Pekka Salonen paired Boulez with Debussy. 

Oliver Knussen and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group excel in a cunningly linked group of works from the old (mid 1980s) to the brand new.

The Musikfest Berlin presented their own ‘Hommage’ to Boulez with his complete works for piano performed by Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich.

Such a protean symphony needs a deft hand on the tiller and, as in his CBSO recording, Simon Rattle was just the man to steer it into harbour.

This Late Night Prom was a fitting way to remember the man. Such events draw a lighter scattering of musical night owls, minimising the hall and allowing for meditative concentration.

The Berliner Philharmoniker’s Academy is the future of this city’s most famous orchestra. Established 40 years ago by Herbert von Karajan, a third of current Berliner Philharmoniker members are Academy graduates.

As part of the New York Philharmonic’s CONTACT new music series at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, Esa-Pekka Salonen drew connections among Olivier Messiaen, two of his students (Pierre Boulez and George Benjamin) and one outlier (Oliver Knussen).

For their first and last ever visit to the Proms, the SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and Freiburg and François-Xavier Roth gave a thrilling concert of 20th-century masterpieces, celebrating a rich history of creative inspiration.

The Lucerne Festival recently celebrated the life and musical achievement of the great French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez on the occasion of his 90th birthday.

The concert, which was part of Mostly Mozart’s “A Little Night Music” series of late-night events, was comprised of six preludes, six canons, and George Benjamin’s 2001 composition Shadowlines, six canonic preludes for the piano that were written for Aimard.

The monumental shadow of Pierre Boulez loomed rather too large over Ravel's Left Hand Concerto and the full Firebird in François-Xavier Roth's detailed readings.

Exquisite Boulez and Francesconi from Mälkki and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, before the conductor pushed the ensemble to its limits in The Planets.

Ruth Mackenzie, Holland Festival’s vivacious and invigorating new director, closed her first edition with a twelve hour Prom, reinventing it as a mini-festival at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw.

The London Symphony Orchestra celebrates Boulez at 90 with a compelling performance under his protege Péter Eötvös.

The first performance of the BBC Symphony Orchestra's Total Immersion Day: Pierre Boulez at 90 featured the composer's Piano Sonata no. 2 and Éclat/Multiples.

The four-part concert, conducted by Franz Welser-Möst, emphasized Boulez's relationship with the orchestra as composer, teacher, conductor, and friend, with four musical works to illustrate those characteristics.

The four pieces – all U.S. premières – created a portrait of Boulez minus Boulez, reminding me of a middle school art exercise in which we were asked to draw an egg without any white crayons.

Exceptional performances of Grisey, Dufourt and Boulez were let down by weak Beethoven from the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Ilan Volkov at the Barbican.

London, along with a large portion of the world, spent most of summer 2012 in awe of an elite group of athletes, cheering on their every move as they undertook a series of arcane but technically demanding tasks in public.

After the epic grandeur, sweep and immersive quality of Gesang der Jünglinge at this summer’s Proms, this performance as part of Southbank Centre’s The Rest is Noise festival had a lot to live up to. In many ways, however, this far less ostentatious outing overseen by Sound Intermedia got even closer to the work’s disturbing essence.

This Sunday, pianist Karim Said returned to the Southbank Centre to put Arnold Schoenberg under the microscope for a third and last time. Performing as part of the International Piano Series 2012/13 and the cataclysmic Rest is Noise festival, Said’s concerts have focused on the genesis of the Second Viennese School.

It was a surprising afternoon of world premières at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw this weekend. With promises of young talent, such as the rising Dutch recorder player Erik Bosgraaf, and daring new compositions by Peter Adriaansz and Louis Andriessen, the event shed some light on the state of modern music today.

Following on from the Contemporary Chamber Works concert of the LSO Futures series, François-Xavier Roth was back less than an hour later with the Symphonic Sound Worlds programme. This formed the second part of his investigation into the nature of the orchestra, its traditional forms and generic makeup.

No ordinary youth orchestra, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra causes quite a stir wherever it performs. Comprised of a mix of Arab, Israeli and Spanish musicians, the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra is committed to coexistence and a peaceful solution to the violent conflict in the Middle East.