Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | English | Symphony no. 6 in B minor, Op.54

Together with soloist Sir Stephen Hough, the CBSO and Sir Mark Elder reinvent Brahms’ First Piano Concerto, present the complex non-narrative of Janáček The Fiddler's Child and suggest real happiness in Shostakovich’s Sixth Symphony. 

Rouvali's Sibelius completely misses the mark, but his Shostakovich is thrilling and vibrant.

Klaus Mäkelä's transparent, tragic Tchaikovsky is the highlight of his auspicious debut with the NY Phil.

Technically impressive pianism from Denis Matsuev doesn't click with Noseda and the LSO, but Shostakovich 6 is delivered with verve.

In a memorable evening, Jurowski and the LPO presented entirely convincing accounts.

Paavo Järvi conducted the Estonian Festival Orchestra that he founded in select works by Northern composers.

The much anticipated Austrian conductor strikes home with Shostakovich and Beethoven as a side dish in Stockholm.

Andris Nelsons returned to his Shostakovich cycle with an easy-going Sixth Symphony, followed by an exhilarating Suite for Variety Orchestra. Jean-Yves Thibaudet delighted audiences with Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F.

This was a rapturous celebration of creative instrumentation, virtuosity and brilliance that completely engaged and energized.

Penderecki as composer/conductor with the LPO in a fascinating exploration of his own work, as well as some relatively rarely played Shostakovich. 

Never failing to provide an interesting programme, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra performed the music of Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich under the baton of the BSO’s Conductor Laureate Andrew Litton.

A combination of Russian and English masterpieces formed the fourth concert of the London Symphony Orchestra’s 110th season. Three of the pieces were written and/or performed during the Second World War, whilst the remaining piece – Prokofiev’s magnificent Piano Concerto no.

Surprisingly, this was the Warsaw Philharmonic’s first visit to the Proms, invited as part of this year’s focus on Polish music. About time too, one might say, and particularly so with it being both Lutosławski’s centenary year (and almost Panufnik’s too, shy by a year), and this the farewell concert of outgoing Artistic Director of twelve years, Antoni Wit.

The items in the Cleveland Orchestra's second programme shared one feature; unusual form with regard to the number of movements. Having played the first four movements of Smetana's Má Vlast the previous evening, here they presented the remaining two.

Friday night's concert, entitled Majestic Brahms, was a concert of two very different halves, with Brahms' Second Piano Concerto comprising the first half and Shostakovich's Sixth Symphony the second. The Brahms is a Herculean piece with one of the most challenging solo parts in the repertoire. Lasting approximately fifty minutes, it is a concerto on a symphonic scale.