Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | English | Magnificat in D major, BWV243

At the George Enescu International Festival, a pair of new shows crossing genres and reinventing the classics, with mostly enlightening results.

Enoch zu Guttenberg conducts a concert of religious music that traverses a vast host of motley mass-related sentiments – but falls somewhat short of completing the course.

...it was the Bach pieces that were the undoubted highlights, particularly the radiant contribution of Sara Macliver.

Ryan Wigglesworth conducts the Hallé in works by Bach, Stravinsky and Schumann.

Masaaki Suzuki leads Bach Collegium Japan in delicate renderings of the Orchestral Suite no.3, the Double Concerto and the Magnificat that convince more in the slower passages.

Bach’s Magnificat featured superlative solos from both singers and musicians, but the RCO and Iván Fischer reached a higher plane in a beautifully crafted and optimistic Brahms’ First Symphony.

Five star reviews are flowing Arcangelo’s way. It’s easy to see why. Five years after it was founded by Jonathan Cohen, the quality of this zestful ensemble just keeps soaring. 

Stimulating sounds from the Academy of Ancient Music in late night Bach at the Proms. 

The main course of the sumptuous feast, under the title of the Valletta International Baroque Festival, arrived on 17 January. The fare was an international favourite with a Maltese surprise.The concert, the eighth in the series, was given by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in the magnificent setting of the ornate St John’s Co-Cathedral.

Celebrating the music of an iconic family that bridged the height of the Baroque period with the Classical era, conductor Christopher Gray and his Three Spires Singers set the evening ablaze with J.S. Bach's Magnificat and two works by the composer's prodigious children: the Sinfonia Concertante in A by J.C. Bach and C.P.E Bach's exuberant Magnificat.

Between them, Mozart and Bach wrote what is to my mind some of the happiest music in the repertoire, and the works performed in this concert by Northern Sinfonia and Chorus reminded us that great music doesn’t have to be solemn, or deliver a serious message – sometimes it’s about having as much fun as possible.

Robert Spano conducted the Orchestra of St. Luke's and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chamber Chorus in an ambitious concert in Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall. The results were as mixed as the programming, which featured J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concerto no. 3 and Magnificat, alongside Messiaen's Trois petites liturgies de la Présence Divine.

This splendid programme rightly attracted a fair sized audience to this fine church on this beautiful evening. Starting with Zadok the Priest, the best known of the four coronation anthems by Handel, the choir, although numbering under 20 voices, produced an initial impact which was to set the tone for the rest of the concert.