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A concert of French music reveals – and suffers from – contrasting styles, attitudes and coherence in works by Ravel and Poulenc. 

Kazuki Yamada and the CBSO and Chorus weave Baroque and Romantic allusions into Haydn’s Classical masterpiece, in a superb, at times operatic, performance at Symphony Hall.

“Go big or go home!” A new season opens with the CBSO and Chorus giving an epic Beethoven Ninth at Birmingham's Symphony Hall. 

Psalm 150 and a collection of outrageous 13th-century texts by boisterous young clergyman collide at the Royal Albert Hall in the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra's Prom. 

The massed ranks of the LSO, the London Symphony and CBSO Choruses, Dame Sarah Connolly and Louise Alder gather for a staggering Mahler 2 at the BBC Proms. 

Mahler's Resurrection Symphony is something of a calling card for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, here originally billed as Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla’s final concert as musical director. 

There could be no more appropriate choice than the Glagolitic Mass, with its text of Old Church Slavonic, for a concert which Bychkov had dedicated to the people of Ukraine.

The CBSO’s newly-announced Chief Conductor delivers a jaw-dropping season opener featuring French and Russian music full of emotional contrasts.

Vassily Sinaisky leads the BBC Philharmonic through the murky worlds of Myaskovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Szymaowski

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla approached the Eighth with a clear vision of the music’s structure and a plan to free the life that teems beneath its mighty vaults.

Edward Gardner conducts a richly entertaining account of Berlioz's masterpiece in Birmingham

Mahler 2 must be mother’s milk for the CBSO Chorus, though they sang with affecting passion from their soft, seated entry to towering last peroration of the Resurrection hymn.

John Wilson oversees a glossy, superficial take on early 20th-century works from England and the USA.

Colour and light from Ludovic Morlot and the CBSO in Debussy and Ravel, but it was the power and depth of Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 that shone the brightest.

With concerts and recitals imaginatively programmed, this second weekend in the CBSO's Debussy Festival was a model of how to make classical music accessible to the widest possible audience.

A taste of the future with Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO.

An underwhelming performance that fell prey to poor interpretive judgements. 

Laughter is indeed the best medicine. As we try and make sense of the continuing political fallout post EU referendum, the CBSO offered the perfect prescription in the ample form of Verdi's Falstaff.

Vassily Sinaisky returned to the BBC Philharmonic to conclude their 2016-17 season with Mahler’s monumental second symphony, with all the might of the CBSO Chorus thrown in for the final movement.

Somewhere in the region of 180 singers and instrumentalists faced Andrew Manze as he took the podium at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall. Could he handle them? There was never any doubt.

Traditionally at the Proms, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is reserved for the penultimate prom slot in September, but this year, they have made an exception and given it to the CBSO and Andris Nelsons.

After seven years at the helm, Andris Nelsons gave his last performance with the CBSO at Symphony Hall. His future in Boston is secured, but what of the CBSO?

It’s probably best not to think too hard about the philosophical messages behind Parsifal, but Nelsons and the CBSO provide an emphatic reminder of how transcendent Wagner's music can be.

The Czech Philharmonic performing Mahler’s Second Symphony at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall equals great expectation. The composer and symphony have historical links to the orchestra and venue alike. Could Bělohlávek deliver?

Triumphant Mahler from Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker, strong performances from Kate Royal and Magdalena Kožená, and total commitment and energy from the London Symphony Chorus and the City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus.

Juanjo Mena conducts stirring accounts of Beethoven's Fourth and Ninth symphonies at Manchester's Bridgewater Hall with the CBSO Chorus.

There’s nothing like a bit of Mozart to help you unwind… and this was far more than a bit of Mozart, as part of the CBSO’s “Relax and Revitalise” series. 

A superb concert performance of Der Rosenkavalier with the CBSO and Andris Nelsons receives a rapturous reception. 

Having resoundingly declared not two weeks ago that I had never seen the CBSO perform so well, I am forced to admit that the orchestra have once again outdone themselves.

Andris Nelsons and the CBSO brought their superb Beethoven cycle to a close with fine performances of the Eighth and Ninth Symphonies at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall.The Eighth Symphony suffers from sitting in the shade of the Seventh and Ninth, but Beethoven’s “Little” F major symphony has a great deal to offer.

The newly built and unconventionally imposing Coventry Cathedral, built next to the ruins of the original medieval building destroyed in the Second World War, played host to the first performance of Britten’s War Requiem in 1962.

The consequence of any war is destruction, and though ancient buildings continue to crumble under the terrific blast of modern warfare, the spirit of a people undefeated invariably gives way to creation with renewed fervour.

Andris Nelsons followed up his 2012 Tristan und Isolde with a stirring performance of Wagner’s breakthrough work, Der fliegende Holländer, with a fine array of soloists and the CBSO in Birmingham. At a little over two hours, The Flying Dutchman is one of Wagner’s shorter operas, but it shares its supernatural themes with many of his other works.

The sea has been the inspiration for many concert works; Debussy’s La mer springs to mind immediately as perhaps the most popular, but in England during the first half of the 20th century nautical themes sustained an important presence. Amongst Delius’ Sea Drift, Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony and Britten’s Four Sea Interludes sits Frank Bridge’s short and splendid suite The Sea.

Pairing Richard Strauss’ Metamorphosen with Mahler’s mighty Resurrection Symphony made for an emotionally exhausting season opener in Birmingham, taking a packed Symphony Hall from anguished lamentation to fist-clenched fury and, ultimately, shattering resolution.Strauss’ unique work for 23 solo strings is widely accepted as being a reflection on 1940s violence.

Here’s a pertinent fact for a classical music website: in 1991, when the wonderful World Wide Web was poised to ensnare anyone with computer access, Birmingham’s Symphony Hall opened its doors to the concert-going public for the first time. It quickly won critical acclaim with artists from across the globe and it’s known as one of the best anywhere.

Tonight’s was an historic performance, so first, a few dates. On 14th November 1940, Luftwaffe bombing raids destroyed much of the medieval centre of Coventry, including most of its cathedral. On 30th May 1962, Benjamin Britten’s specially-commissioned War Requiem was premièred by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in Sir Basil Spence’s newly consecrated cathedral.

Whatever your theological convictions, Christian or otherwise, it is doubtless that the collective elements that make up The Dream of Gerontius contribute to one of the greatest works of both English literature and the English Choral Tradition.

An 'immense glow and sumptuousness' were the words that Richard Strauss, aged just twenty-four, chose to describe the sound at the première of his tone poem, Don Juan, in 1889. 122 years later another young conductor found similar qualities with his orchestra.

In commemoration of the bombing of Rotterdam on May 14 1940, Rotterdam’s concert venue De Doelen organized a very special program consisting of Benjamin Britten’s “War Requiem”.

Le splendide oratorio de Mendelssohn était donné pour la première fois dans la Principauté. Retour sur une soirée pleine de succès – malgré les faiblesses du rôle-titre.