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In Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto, Yulianna Avdeeva commands attention through sheer innate charisma, anchored in intense engagement.

The German violinist gives us plenty of Czech brio in Dvořák; conductor and orchestra display many good qualities but fail to thrill.

Two notable debuts dominate Oper Leipzig's notable Lady Macbeth revival: Kristine Opolais as Katerina and Andris Nelsons in the pit. 

The combined forces of the Gewandhaus and Boston Symphony unite under Andris Nelsons for a searing Leningrad Symphony, while the Quatuor Danel tackles the string quartets. 

Herbert Blomstedt conducts Schubert and Berwald... and picks up a medal on his return to the Leipzig Gewandhaus.

Ulf Schirmer bows out as General Music Director as the last of Wagner's 13 operas completes a successful Festival Wagner 22 in Leipzig.

A visit to London from Nelsons is always an occasion. The first of two programmes dedicated to Strauss demonstrated why the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig is among the best in the world.

A new production of Lohengrin at Oper Leipzig is conceived as an intimate chamber opera and succeeds with brilliant musical performances.

Dramatic shifts in music and movement style characterise Mario Schröder's new ballet about loneliness.

With an excellent cast and sumptuous orchestral playing, Oper Leipzig delivers a vivid evening of enjoyment.

The Gewandhausorchester lends its distinctive voice to Mahler, Schumann, Wagner, and Mendelssohn in its second solo Leipzig Week program

Andris Nelsons conducts his "other" orchestra in Boston in a classic program of Brahms and Schubert. 

Andris Nelson’s repeated fast upward flicks of the baton were disquieting to watch.

After the UK première of Andris Dzenītis’ Māra and some Tchaikovsky operatic excerpts, the Gewandhaus returned to Mahler. 

The new Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester leads a passionate rendering of Mahler 5, while Håkan Hardenberger gives a masterclass in trumpet colour.

The Allegro assai fared best of all with feverishly energetic strings and an astonishingly violent fugato development.

The amazing phenomenon that is Herbert Blomstedt leads the Gewandhausorchester from Leipzig in Beethoven's Triple Concerto and Bruckner's mighty Seventh.

Despite some weakness in the main singers, the overall level of musical performances was consistently high in Leipzig, with a stark and effective production.

Siegfried in Leipzig succeeds on all fronts: an engaging production, a great ensemble of singers and a well-conducted orchestra.

Die Walküre in Leipzig turns the family drama into a tragedy of fear and anxiety, with glimpse of hope at the end.

Oper Leipzig's Das Rheingold unfolds with no set changes, giving Wagner's music plenty of opportunities to fuel the imagination.

In a state of almost child-like transfiguration and fulfilment, Strid's voice fully encompassed the extremes of the last scene.

An outstanding cast and Anthony Pilavachi's excellent production make a compelling case for Cinq-Mars at Oper Leipzig.

Christian von Götz's production doesn't all work, but he makes a viable, thought-provoking and entertaining show out of Weber's spooky classic.

Balázs Kovalik's new dystopian Turandot is musically rousing but let down by a production that's more 1970s TV series than slick modern sci-fi. 

At 89, Blomstedt may now be in the autumn of his years, but his conducting is certainly the equivalent of Ol' Blue Eyes' “vintage wine from fine old kegs”, as evidenced in tonight's splendid all-Beethoven Prom with the Gewandhaus.

Oper Leipzig served up Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen as the closing piece of its Wagner Festtage “Frühe Werke”. 

Where to place Wagner’s first opera Die Feen? Not a typical comedy, but it’s also not a tragedy. Oper Leipzig's powerful production is one to fall in love with. 

Oper Leipzig's co-production with Bayreuth Festspiele pulls off a delightful take on Wagner's Das Liebesverbot. With excellent vocals, the Gewandhaus Orchestra, and great wit, Wagner's comedy comes highly recommended.

In this last concert in the Leipzig Gewandhaus and Riccardo Chailly’s brief residency at the Barbican, all concerned were on top form. 

The Leipzig Kapellmeister Riccardo Chailly and his Gewandhausorchester demonstrate style and substance in two tone poems by Richard Strauss, with Christian Tetzlaff as the soloist in Mozart's K216 concerto.

The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra began its latest London residency with an impressive concert of Strauss and Mozart.

Not everything worked in Gilbert's Beethoven Nine, but the stunning finale redeemed all.

Gilbert and the Gewandhaus gave us a Mahler 3 that was truly the representation of all of creation that the composer strove for. It's a symphony to keep coming back for.

The Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Alan Gilbert deliver a satisfying account of Mahler's titanic Third Symphony in the Berlin Festival, with a memorable solo from alto Gerhild Romberger.

For an inventive production, fine singing and magnificent orchestral playing, this new Leipzig Die Frau ohne Schatten deserves every success.

Despite Richard Strauss' few connections with Leipzig, the Gewandhaus Orchestra under Riccardo Chailly offered a vivdly characterized tribute to the composer on his 150th anniversary, from an affectionate Don Quixote to a witty - and furiously paced - Till Eulenspiegel. 

I sat down to hear the last concert of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra’s Brahms cycle under Riccardo Chailly at the Barbican with high hopes. Having heard the hype, it seemed that the restrained autumnal shades of the Violin Concerto in D major (with superstar Leonidas Kavakos) and the sheer compositional majesty of the Symphony no.

For anyone lucky enough to have witnessed the last Barbican residency from Riccardo Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the striking, thoughtful and vivid accounts of Brahms they gave here should not be a surprise. In Brahms’ Piano Concerto no. 2, however, orchestra outdid soloist.

In an era in which orchestras are supposed to have lost their distinctive 20th-century sounds, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig is one that retains its characteristic dark hue, with fascinating wind timbres that simply refuse to blend into a homogenised whole. And yet there is refinement and virtuosity to match the world’s best orchestras.

Arguably the highest-profile visiting orchestra of the season, Riccardo Chailly brought his Leipzig orchestra to Birmingham for a duo of 20th-century Russian works. The large audience was not disappointed, Rachmaninov’s second symphony in particular shining in a magnificent performance.

Two fine concerts from Riccardo Chailly’s Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra filled part of the space between end-of-season Proms from the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics. They brought Mendelssohn of refinement and poise to Prom 67 and dark, fateful thrust in Messiaen and Mahler for Prom 69.

The first of the two Proms by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra featured an all-Mendelssohn programme. The orchestra has a long tradition of performing Mendelssohn’s music, as he was their Music Director from 1835 until his early death in 1847.

Riccardo Chailly was much loved as prinicpal conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, a position he held between 1988 and 2004. And even though tonight he played with his own Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, he received a hero’s welcome at the Concertgebouw.

Leipzig routinely honours its native son with performances of Parsifal scheduled on and around Good Friday, which tempts a state of ritualized enactment best confined to the opera itself. (Vienna maintains the same tradition and is a magnet for self-appointed enforcers of the Bayreuth applause customs and their confrontational silencing of the ‘transgressors’.

Part of the St Thomas Choir Leipzig’s 800th anniversary celebrations, this Manchester concert was a deeply moving evening in which superb musicianship all round seemed almost to bring Bach himself, a Thomaskantor (choir director) in his day, to the Bridgewater Hall.The Passions of J.S. Bach are well described in Paul Kilbey’s recent article. The St.

If you watch one of Alfred Hitchcock's better movies (The Birds and The Man Who Knew Too Much are good examples), the timing and pace has a strange effect. The first half hour passes pleasantly enough: you meet the characters, and nothing too much happens. An hour in, and the action is running at break-neck pace, your pulse is racing, and your brain is straining to keep up.

Der 98-jährige Dirigent ließ das Publikum des Gewandhauses nach Bruckners Neunter Symphonie in fesselnder Stille verharren.

Le festival lancé sur le modèle des Prom's londoniens a connu une soirée inaugurale réjouissante, avec notamment une Deuxième Symphonie de Sibelius à marquer d'une pierre blanche.