Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | English | Tannhäuser: Overture

Debutant conductor Thomas Guggeis filled out the programme with a creation of his own – a fusion of Tannhäuser, Lohengrin and Meistersinger.

A great RSNO season debut from conductor David Niemann, with impressive Wagner and a searing Pathétique Symphony. 

In his Carnegie Hall debut, the young Czech conductor leads a meaty and memorable program of Brahms and Wagner, with joined by Hélène Grimaud for Robert Schumann’s sole Piano Concerto.

The Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai impresses in “bleeding chunks” from Wagner operas at the Festival de Pâques d'Aix-en-Provence.

Soloists Klaus Florian Vogt, Christian Gerhaher, Amber Wagner and Marina Prudenskaya star in Act 3 of Tannhäuser.

Must individual items in a concert programme form a coherent whole? Not necessarily, but here a Wagner overture, a cello concerto inspired by environmental concerns and an early Mendelssohn symphony don't justify the LPO's marketing.

Soprano Louise Alder explored the dying embers of the Romantic movement in a sensitive performance of Vier letzte Lieder.

The Orchestra and Chorus of Teatro alla Scala excel in a thrilling concert conducted by Riccardo Chailly with a magnificent contribution from soprano Lise Davidsen.

Karina Canellakis leads the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra in Wagner and Strauss with style and sophistication.

Wagner and hard-driven Brahms counter a silky smooth performance of Weber's First Clarinet Concerto.

It was only in the final moments of The Firebird that the orchestra let themselves go, following a series of sensitive and transparent performances.

A marvellous Saint-Saëns “Organ Symphony” makes great use of the Adelaide Town Hall organ. 

Debussy's newly unearthed Première Suite d’orchestre, hitherto unheard in the UK, was presented in the context of music that may have inspired him.

Runnicles presents a concert weighted towards a splendid second half.

Richard Farnes and the CBSO give disappointing readings of Wagner and Sibelius, with only the Beethoven Fourth rising above routine.

Martha Argerich shows her star quality in an extraordinary, intimate rendering of Liszt's First Piano Concerto; the West-Eastern Divan orchestra make a big political statement in performing Wagner.

The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra produced a varied programme at their Lighthouse concert, but with mixed results: illuminating Walton, but uneven Sibelius.

An intense experience as the RCO explores programme music depicting poets, musicians and artists. 

A decadent romantic programme of Wagner and Mahler, where Nathalie Stutzmann delivered a scintillating performance particularly in Wagner's Prelude.

Lang Lang powers through Grieg's Piano Concerto to general acclaim.

Giving the audience closer access to performers may be a key to the survival of an ever-more-elitist entertainment form

Compelling offerings from Petrenko with the RLPO in romantic works, while Ning Feng dazzles with his poetry and extraordinary tone. 

In his 2011 book Verdi and/or Wagner, currently doing the rounds in libraries across the UK for obvious reasons, Peter Conrad devotes the best of 400 pages to essentially draw all sorts of divisive lines: the sensual Italian song versus the cerebral German symphony; the radically different conceptions of tragedy (“Tragedy in Wagner is an act of will […] Verdi’s characters, unlike Wagner’s, would p

It may have been the autumn equinox, but this evening spring came to a balmy Birmingham, meteorologically and musically. Symphony Hall was abuzz in anticipation of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring in the piece’s centenary year, but the concert – and the 2013/14 season – was launched with Wagner’s Tannhäuser overture.

The Toronto Symphony’s 92nd season’s gala featured three works connected to operas, and who better to bring out the singing quality and dramatic storytelling of a piano score than pianist Lang Lang.

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra really has the perfect Wagner sound. Their full, vibrant string tone and magnificent pealing brass were fully in evidence in a thrilling rendition of the concert version of the overture from Tannhäuser. Few moments in music are as exciting as the build-up to the Big Tune in this piece, and the orchestra’s performance here was barnstorming yet perfectly accurate.

The orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera House rarely gets out of its pit, but when it does, it plays at Carnegie Hall. Carnegie has a rather different acoustic to the Met – much more closely-held, much more intense – and its unforgiving glare occasionally presented one challenge too many for the MET Orchestra. Still, they acquitted themselves well in this matinée.

Juanjo Mena launched the BBC Philharmonic’s season with an all-Wagner programme which, despite some small faults, featured some excellent playing.The main issue was soprano Brigitte Hahn’s projection, particularly in the Götterdämmerung finale.

It sounds almost like heresy to describe a Beethoven composition as “light”, but it would be appropriate for the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra’s concert on Saturday. His Symphony No. 6 in F, Op. 68, Pastoral, was like soufflé to the crème brûlée of Elgar’s Cello Concerto and Wagner’s Tannhäuser overture.