Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | English | Lawrence Power

After an indifferent start, the Philharmonia finally come to life in the last movement of Sibelius’ First Symphony. Lawrence Power shows his viola class.

Andrew Manze and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra provide Northern Light from two Swedish composers, but sinister darkness from two Scots.

John Storgårds, the BBC Philharmonic and Lawrence Power deliver soothing waves of sound in Miller's I cannot love without trembling and an intense, though occasionally overwhelming, performance of Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony.

When is a work actually finished ? Only when composer, publisher, editors and performers agree that it is... Sakari Oramo conducts the London premiere of Knussen's Cleveland Pictures. 

It is always good to hear the command of the viola that Lawrence Power demonstrates, but a one-dimensional approach to a Bruckner symphony short-changes the composer.

A fuel-filled programme from the London Philharmonic under Hannu Lintu in Nielsen and Mahler, while Lawrence Power exudes contemporary flair in Brett Dean’s Viola Concerto.

Andrew Manze conducts the RLPO in a mostly Scandinavian programme in which the world premiere of a viola concerto proves to be an intriguing listen. 

While Stravinsky and Britten tuck away their sentiments and melodies, the debate about Shostakovich’s Fifth seems finally to be settled.

The Nash Ensemble performs Dvořák's Piano Quartet no. 2 at Wigmore Hall, followed by a joyful rendition of Schubert's Trout Quintet.

Two contrasting works from the Nash Ensemble made for a fine evening of the very best quality chamber music at Wigmore Hall, gratefully received in the hall and by many online.

An uplifting performance by the Swedish orchestra takes us on a journey from the Isle of Staffa to Bohemian forests via the Carpathian Mountains in the venue's Nature Unwrapped season. 

Thomas Adès and the Britten Sinfonia now enter the final phase of their three year Beethoven and Barry cycle with rewarding interpretations of Beethoven's Seventh and Eighth, separated by a new Viola Concerto from Barry.

An enthralling afternoon on London's Southbank as Lawrence Power and Pavel Kolesnikov perform all Brahms' sonatas for violin and viola. 

An evening of unfailing interest that flagged up the wonders of both David Owen Norris and Lawrence Power in variable performances of classic scores by Vaughan Williams. 

The second half was all about Ravel and Adrian Brendel.

The conductor guided us on a tour through a museum where Erkki-Sven Tüür, Mozart and Brahms reside in spheres of different shades and spaces – and yet each remain enclosed in a prefigured structure.

A stimulating and imaginative programme, including folksy Ligeti, with striking Salonen and intense Bartók from Lawrence Power, finished off with powerful Mahler from Gustavo Gimeno and the Philharmonia Orchestra.

BBCSSO and Richard Farnes’s special chemistry in a night of British music. Thoughtful Butterworth and noble Elgar and  Lawrence Power joined the forces for a wonderfully spirited performance of Macmillan’s Viola Concerto.

An evening of English repertoire at King's Place where the pleasures were flecked with disappointments. 

Shakespeare songs turned out to be more of a Shakespeare feast starring Antonio Pappano, Ian Bostridge and the exceptional Eve Best.

Dohnányi and the Philharmonia produce rousing Beethoven and Bartók with clarity and bite. Steinbacher and Power present different approaches to Mozart in a spirited and flawless performance.

Stunning Smetana and Dvořák made for a gripping end to a fine concert.

Joshua Bell and other musical heavyweights fail to impress in an evening of Czech chamber works well-known and otherwise.

A select group of musicians provided a modest programme of chamber music at St George’s alongside renowned pianist, Paul Lewis.

The International Chamber Music Festival offered a cycling tour along some of the finest buildings in Utrecht, where music was performed in this special setting.

An astonishing performance of Mahler's Sixth Symphony followed the world première of James MacMillan's Viola Concerto, a haunting mixture of the old and the new. Soloist Lawrence Power joined the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Vladimir Jurowski.

Hot on the heels of this year’s Hollywood Rhapsody Prom came its less glamorous, perhaps geekier sibling, the Film Music Prom. There was less of the fanfare and opulence here; this was about the silver screen (and by that, I don’t mean the sort that is coming back into use for 3D films) and sci-fi.

Tonight’s programme was a feast of British music, with a Britten flavour, played by the strings of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, joined by virtuosic viola player Lawrence Power, whose prowess is bringing this much-neglected solo instrument into its own.We started with the beautiful Introduction and Allegro for string quartet and string orchestra, written by Edward Elgar in 1905.

An orgy of British music greeted an appreciative audience at the Barbican last night courtesy of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by British music enthusiast John Wilson. But it certainly wasn’t all Land of Hope and Glory, or indeed The Lark Ascending, with three contrasting pieces – all now sadly neglected in the concert hall.Walton’s Scapino overture really set things in motion with a bang.

“Three concertos and an epitaph” is how the Wales Millennium Centre summed up tonight’s concert. Not only did the selected programme focus almost exclusively on three composers’ essays in the concerto genre, but it also spanned a narrow period of time within the mid 20th-century: 22 years in total, or 38 if one includes Andrzej Panufnik’s Katyn Epitaph.

Benjamin Britten isn’t the only British composer with an anniversary this year, and I’m not talking about the 450-year-old John Dowland. David Matthews is 70, and a birthday concert from the Nash Ensemble at Wigmore Hall last Tuesday presented several of his works in tribute.

Michael Tippett died 14 years ago but his diverse canon has been relatively underrepresented since, the pacifist A Child of Our Time being perhaps the exception. In tonight’s Barbican outing, it was surprising but refreshing to see his Triple Concerto for violin, viola and cello, written in 1978–9, paired with Henk de Vlieger’s orchestral contraction of Wagner’s Ring cycle.

As I write this, I have just realised that someone in a neighbouring flat is listening to some rather loud jazz, a man is shouting outside, probably at the car alarm that has just gone off, and there is a bee buzzing around my room.

The husband and wife team of acclaimed concert violinist Lisa Batiashvili and solo oboist François Leleux forms the backbone of this as-yet-unnamed chamber group, which performs as often as busy individual schedules permit. For some the main draw of an ensemble of like this might be hearing the music buffeted around by strong personalities.

One of today’s foremost violists, Lawrence Power joined a Scottish Ensemble augmented by two horns and two oboes for this typically boldly-programmed concert. The centrepiece was a new work by Luke Bedford, first composer-in-residence at the Wigmore Hall, written for the same musical forces as Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, which ended the evening.

Violist Lawrence Power, appropriately enough, produces a powerful, beautiful sound. Many public speakers would envy his musical charisma; when he begins a phrase you simply have to hear how it ends. His appearance as guest of the Scottish Ensemble saw him as joint soloist in two works and soloist proper in another.

In a musical tour around Great Britain, the dramatic focus was centred on Wales and Scotland, with James MacMillian’s Three Interludes from The Sacrifice: and The Confession of Isobel Gowdie opening and closing the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s concert at the Basingstoke Anvil.