Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | James Oxley

It was no Christmas miracle, but the OSM's technically strong Bach concert brought a dignified kind of cheer to the most wonderful time of the year.

This celebration of Tavener's music showed the extraordinary depth and breadth of his compositions. 

As Britain prepares to celebrate the centenary of World War One, Britten's War Requiem brings a remarkable start to the Worcester Three Choirs Festival.

Thomas Zehetmair brings out all the ochestral detail of Bach's masterpiece, creating a beautifully approachable and engaging St Matthew Passion that goes straight to the heart of the story.

Handel’s original version of Acis and Galatea was written in 1717–18 at Cannons, a stately home in Middlesex. Composed with light orchestration, it was not meant to be performed in an opera theatre, but rather in this private mansion.

The Mass in B minor was completed in 1749, the year before Bach’s death. Much of the work consists of music Bach composed much earlier in his life (the Kyrie and Gloria from one of the Lutheran Masses). The sections he added latter were among the last things he wrote before he died.

Joshua Rifkin’s theory that Bach had no ‘choir’ in the modern sense may have gradually inched its way towards acceptance, but for all the heated discussion his research has generated, one-per-part Passions are rarer than one might suppose.

For lovers of choral music, a Bach Passion or Handel’s Messiah are as much part of Easter as chocolate eggs, and this year’s musical treat at the Sage Gateshead was Bach’s St John Passion, played by Northern Sinfonia with debut guest conductor Matthew Hall.

Un voyage intérieur au cours duquel le temps suspend son vol pour offrir au spectateur une expérience musicale et théâtrale envoûtante.