Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | English | Symphony no. 1 in G minor "Winter Daydreams", Op.13

The Franco-Serbian violinist dresses like a flamboyant rockstar, but his performance of Khachaturian's raucous Violin Concerto displays an angelic touch. 

The Estonian Festival Orchestra revels in Dvořák and Tchaikovsky on the Vienna leg of its European tour with Paavo Järvi. 

Sometimes artists surprise, but in a wholly positive way: nothing remotely bland about Buchbinder's approach to Beethoven's C minor concerto and a Tchaikovsky 1 streets ahead of Järvi's recent recording.

If you're dreaming of a White Christmas, what better way to be guaranteed of snow than taking a trip to Russia with the BBC Symphony Orchestra?

The LPO gave us a tantalising reminder of summer before plunging us into the icy chill of Tchaikovsky’s Winter Daydreams. 

Ben Gernon impresses with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in an evocative programme of French and Russian music.

The Orchestra of St. Luke's under Heras-Casado performed an intriguing program of early works by Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, with a stirring account of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto as a special treat in between.

A fantastic concert with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the charismatic Daniele Rustioni, with violinist Tasmin Little in Mendelssohn. 

The Campaign for Real Mussorgsky has been fighting the good fight for decades. Here, Vladimir Jurowski and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment went one step further… performing original versions of his scores on period instruments. 

It would be hard to count out every single thing that was Russian about this concert. The sounds of 19th-century Russia came to Colston Hall, as part of a big tour of the UK, with three giant Russian works and three encores, by all-Russian performers.The Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow Radio is a big orchestra with around 100 instrumentalists.

Starting the role of principal conductor of a new orchestra may be compared to trying out a new car. There is of course the initial thrill of the novelty of it all, testing the performance of the vehicle; how quickly it can accelerate, how smooth are the transitions from one speed to another.

Although Vasily Petrenko only gave his first concert as chief conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra last week, Monday’s Prom heralded this as an exciting new partnership. In a programme built around dreams and fantasy, Petrenko led the orchestra through some fantastic performances, with their Tchaikovsky especially praiseworthy.

It took the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra a little while to settle into tonight’s performance – which was a shame, because Borodin’s overture to Prince Igor can be a fantastic programme opener. A slightly untidy brass chord began the measured introduction, which sadly lacked tension in the build-up to the sudden fanfare and breakneck main theme.

Under the baton of Christian Kluxen, their young Danish Assistant Conductor, there was a distinctly Scandinavian flavour to the RSNO’s concert on Friday evening. While not sold out, the Usher Hall was reassuringly full, the audience no doubt drawn by the familiar names on the programme as well as undeterred by the novelties.

Blossom Music Center, summer home of The Cleveland Orchestra, is about 25 miles south of Cleveland, just to the north of Akron, in a beautiful wooded area nestled next to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Opening in 1968, Blossom presents a wide variety of concerts, both orchestral and popular, and theatrical events each summer.

Two firsts for the price of one. The anticipated Piano Concerto no. 2 by Brahms was replaced by no. 1, as it suited French pianist Hélène Grimaud’s recording commitments with Deutsche Grammophon.

For last Sunday’s concert, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony chose a programme with a distinctly Eastern European flavour spanning almost a century and a half. They began with Liszt’s Prometheus, an overture to a set of choral pieces Liszt wrote for a festival celebrating the life and works of German literary philosopher Gottfried von Herder in 1850.