Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Cello Concerto no. 1 in E flat major, Op.107

An unusual combination of 20th-century Russian masterworks herald debut appearances by both conductor and soloist in Sydney.

Rouvali and the Philharmonia dazzle with sunlit Tchaikovsky, intense Shostakovich and Say’s imaginative textures, while Gabetta’s physical, lyrical cello brings immediacy to an evening of virtuosity, warmth and playful energy.

Gautier Capuçon, Pierre Bleuse and the Orchestre du Festival Casals bring a devastating Shostakovich First Cello Concerto to Aix-en-Provence's Festival de Pâques. 

Sheku Kanneh-Mason makes his local debut in Shostakovich's First Cello Concerto, followed by a fantasia on Arabella conceived by Music Director Manfred Honeck. 

In the 50th anniversary year of Shostakovich's death, the Czech Philharmonic bring two of the composer's greatest works to the Barbican, the latest stop on their European tour. 

Sheku Kanneh-Mason proved his mettle in Shostakovich's difficult First Cello Concerto; Esa-Pekka Salonen galvanises the NY Phil, breathing new life into a repertoire icon.

Canellakis and the LPO are in fighting form with Brahms’ Fourth Symphony, while Pablo Ferrández provides subtlety and sardonic bite in Shostakovich. 

Nicholas Collon conducts the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in a ZaterdagMatinee programme designed to celebrate Finnish Independence Day. 

Lera Auerbach's Icarus serves up lots of flavours without much meat, but the RSNO's new principal cello makes a first class soloist debut with them in Shostakovich.

Gustavo Dudamel pairs Stravinsky's Firebird with Villa-Lobos' rarely heard avian symphonic poem, Uirapurú. 

With a potential strike looming, Yo-Yo Ma joins Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin for a surprisingly tame performance of Shostakovich's psychologically dense Cello Concerto no. 1.

The young cellist excels in Shostakovich with the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Cristian Mandeal. 

The CBSO and Kazuki Yamada, with cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, get their new season up and running with an evening of ebullience, pain and, ultimately, happiness. 

The Dresden Music Festival public renew their love for Jan Vogler, who is joined by festival debutants from Parma. 

Vasily Petrenko continues his ‘Great British Music’ series with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, but with an aptly programmed Russian concerto. 

Alsop and the London Philharmonic do full justice to Barber and give Soltani's cello superlative support in Shostakovich, but sound inappropriately restless in Brahms.

A full frontal assault by Valery Gergiev on Brahms' First Symphony and Shostakovich's First Cello Concerto in explosive performances.

An occasionally uneven but often searing set of performances from the Tekfen Philharmonic and cellist Daniel Muller-Schott. 

A disparate set of pieces are connected to an intriguing theme in mostly successful performances, including Shostakovich from cellist Alisa Weilerstein.

Capuçon warmed up through the melancholy second movement, exhibiting seamless legato and the ability to feather his phrases with finesse and subtlety

Rachmaninov had a strange fascination with the Dies irae chant. For last night’s concert, Andrés Orozco-Estrada prefaced the Symphonic Dances with a rendition of this Gregorian Chant.

Semyon Bychkov, the Berliner Philharmoniker and Gautier Capuçon present an outstanding programme exploring the different sides of musical heroism

Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, joined by cellist Gautier Capuçon, presented modern, post-war masterworks in their first of two nights in Stern Auditorium.

Alain Altinoglu, conducting with a mixture of histrionic flourishes and balletic flair, leads a fiery account of Ravel's ballet. 

The Oslo Philharmonic offers a spirited interpretation of fine nuance and a sense of grandeur and opulence in Rachmaninov's Second Symphony. 

Solid performances of chunky classics.

Petrenko and the RLPO produced a Rachmaninov symphony that ticked all the boxes, a scintillating world première from Emily Howard and a Shostakovich concerto with an impressive replacement soloist.

To celebrate their ten year partnership, Vasily Petrenko and the RLPO serve up a hearty Russian meal with a British-Italian hors d'oeuvre.  

The BBC’s biennial Young Musician competition reached its thrilling climax in an absorbing, nail-biting and inspirational final concert at London’s Barbican yesterday afternoon.

An eclectic program under Esa-Pekka Salonen's baton, highlighted by Lutosławski’s watershed Third Symphony and a Shostakovich concerto with Yo-Yo Ma.

The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra returned once again to the Colston Hall to perform three very different works. Steven Isserlis headlined the evening with a fantastic rendition of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto no. 1.

Though impressively performed by the Moscow players, conductor Yuri Simonov's interpretative choices did not always convince in Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony.

There were high peaks and low valleys in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's performance of Berlioz' Symphonie fantastique, Shostakovich's Cello Concert no. 1, and Weber's Ruler of the Spirits overture, with conductor Stéphane Denève.

There can be few openings which get as briskly down to business as Britten’s 1946 The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. Peter Oundjian and the RSNO exploded into the minor-key Rondeau, which Britten had borrowed from Purcell’s 1695 Abdelazer Z. 750.

For the second of their two Sydney programs, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra pretty much replicated the layout of the first: a short modernist work, a concerto featuring a string instrument, and, in the second half, a big romantic symphony.

A Russian orchestra playing big, soul-searching pieces of Russian music is always going to be a crowd-puller, and a full symphony orchestra visiting the North East is a rare treat, so it was no surprise that the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra had the cavernous Town Hall in Middlesbrough pretty much filled, with a very enthusiastic audience.

Everyone tells me that Russians play Russian music better than anyone else, but no-one seems to be able to put their fingers on the mysterious quality of Russianness Russians are meant to produce when playing Russian.

“From Russia with love” might have been an apt title for this evening’s performance from the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra on the Irish leg of their tour, for this was a concert designed to showcase all that is best in Russian music both in interpretation and in composition.

Sometimes an eagerly awaited performance starts out brilliantly, more or less how you thought it would, but then it kind of fizzles out towards the middle, only to return with a vengeance at the end. This was more or less the case with Vasily Petrenko and the Oslo Philharmonic this Thursday.

A packed hall, including several primary schools and a handful of mayors, attended for a 20th-century triptych. One suspected that most were there for Holst’s The Planets, but it was the first half’s Stravinsky and Shostakovich which were most revelatory tonight.

It’s hard to say who was more excited about Prom 19: Thomas Dausgaard, who conducted the whole thing with lashings of arm-waving vigour, or the Proms audience, who enjoyed the performance so much that they deliberately (and justifiably) clapped between the movements.

The Mahler Chamber Orchestra presented a Russian program with a twist; “A Russian Flirt with Haydn”. All four works and three composers that graced the stage were influenced by Haydn, most obviously Schnittke and his Moz-Art à la Haydn. The music worked well together, though I would suspect that this is more due to the Russian background than Haydn’s influence.

Stravinsky’s Scherzo Fantastique, Op. 3 is one of his earliest works, as its opus number would suggest. There are very few composers who can truly create a fairytale atmosphere in their music, but Stravinsky was one of the best at it.

La vénérable formation allemande a fait très forte impression dans la Septième Symphonie de Bruckner sous la direction de Tugan Sokhiev, après avoir accompagné une Sol Gabetta admirable dans Chostakovitch.

Entgegengesetzter hätten die zweite Werke am Programm der Sächsischen Staatskapelle Dresden auf ihrer Tournee nicht sein können: Schostakowitschs Erstes Cellokonzert mit Sol Gabetta und Bruckners Siebte Symphonie.

Si le violoncelliste s'est montré inspiré dans le Premier Concerto de Chostakovitch, Andrés Orozco-Estrada est passé à côté d'un concert qui n'a pas proposé la fête attendue.

El violonchelista Santiago Cañón-Valencia ofreció una magnífica versión del Concierto para chelo de Shostakovich bajo la batuta del también colombiano Juan Pablo Valencia.

López-Ferrer ofrece un cohesionado programa a pesar de la diversidad en las obras al frente de una Orquesta de RTVE extrovertida y precisa.