Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | English | Sonatine in F sharp major

At the Festival Ravel, Bertrand Chamayou, Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Hyunji Kim perform all the solo piano works at the Église Saint-Vincent, a stone’s throw from the house where Ravel was born.

The BBC Symphony Orchestra shines in Strauss, in particular the characterful woodwind solos and the fulsomely resplendent brass. 

A generous helping of the pastoral and an overlooked early masterpiece demonstrate the range of Vaughan Williams, along with a work by his mentor, Maurice Ravel.

Ravel’s Sonatine – performed in transcription for oboe – prefaced a lush reading of Britten’s Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge.

The young Georgian pianist thrills in the brilliance and technical wizardry of Thalberg and Liszt as well as Schumann's Fantasiestücke. 

Nobuyuki Tsujii's debut in the Southbank's International Piano Series proves a mixed success. 

Maria João Pires showcases a young pianist who steals the show.

Core repertoire from across nearly two centuries formed the basis of a recital programme that forged a link from Bach to Ravel.

Regular concert-goers are used to hearing the harp on a church altar or mixed in with a large symphony, barely audible above the mass of strings, bass and brass. But the St Luke’s Chamber Ensemble put the harp center stage, in an evening of 20th-century French music, no less.

In a way, this was a virtuoso programme, but Alasdair Beatson is not a pianist inclined to indulge in vapid displays of skill and empty gesturing. Rather, this was a set of slightly unobvious works where the music was very much the point, not the performer.We opened with Mozart's Piano sonata in F K332.