Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | English | Symphony no. 8 in F major, Op.93

Nelsons stresses refined dynamics, rhythmic drive, balance and contrast as he closes the Beethoven Festival in style. 

The Flanders Symphony Orchestra finish their UK tour in Edinburgh with Mozart and Beethoven: safe repertoire, but it's played with focus and energy.

Much delayed by the pandemic, Giordano Bellincampi's Beethoven symphony cycle with the Auckland PO finally reaches its conclusion with a triumphant closing concert. 

Ligeti, Grieg, Beethoven and 100 metronomes offer an unusual combination from the Ulster Orchestra in Belfast.

The world premiere of Erkki-Sven Tüür's Flute Concerto, written for Berliner Philharmoniker principal Emmanuel Pahud, is the main dish in Järvi's three-course programme. 

An all-day Beethoven experience European style with both highs and lows: much diversity revealed and exploited but of variable quality.

A performance of Ravel's concerto to savour as a beacon of light and hope in these dark times. 

Brinton Averil Smith, the Symphony's principal cello, approached Haydn's D major Concerto with bold courage and passionate, if inconsistently manufactured, strokes.

An early evening concert of Haydn and Beethoven with a light heart proved to be a tonic in this dark November lockdown. 

Fresh sounds from Anna Clyne, and the LPO serves up a sumptuous meal in Richard Strauss' Le Bourgeois gentilhomme.

Nine symphonies, five orchestras, two days: an immersive weekend as part of the Barbican's Beethoven 250 coverage featuring some of the UK's finest orchestras. 

"Beethoven 250" starts in grand form with thrilling performances of Egmont and Symphonies 5 and 8 in Antwerp.

Thomas Adès and the Britten Sinfonia now enter the final phase of their three year Beethoven and Barry cycle with rewarding interpretations of Beethoven's Seventh and Eighth, separated by a new Viola Concerto from Barry.

Missy Mazzoli's double bass concerto receives its UK premiere as part of Kings Place's Venus Unwrapped season. 

The Cleveland Orchestra’s Chicago appearance with music director Franz Welser-Möst offered symphonies of Beethoven and Sibelius in performances that exuded both precision and beauty.

An elegant performance of Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony opened an oddly-proportioned concert.

Serebrier and the ECO deliver fine performances of Haydn, Beethoven and Vaughan Williams.  

Evocative new works by Adès and Coll were performed thrillingly and provocatively by the Britten Sinfonia as they brought fizz and clarity to Beethoven's eighth and Prokofiev's "Classical" Symphony.

Pinchas Zukerman celebrated the 45th anniversary of his Cleveland Orchestra debut with Mozart’s “Turkish” concerto.

Fazıl Say dazzles as both composer and soloist with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta. 

The Belgian period-instrument ensemble Anima Eterna Brugge deliver controlled but expressive performances of Beethoven's Symphonies 8 and 7 as part of a complete cycle in Sydney

Mixed results in the 20th century portion of the program are remedied with some very fine Beethoven playing. 

The Zurich Chamber Orchestra (ZKO) recently played an unforgettable all-Beethoven programme at the city’s Tonhalle. Before launching into the Eighth Symphony, conductor Sir Roger warned us: “Buckle your seatbelts!”

Directed by guest conductor Tito Muñoz, the São Paulo State Orchestra (OSESP) performed a programme centered around the different conceptions of contrast, with music by Takemitsu, Beethoven and Nielsen.

Chloe Hanslip and the Bern Symphony Orchestra show us how much there is to love in the Sibelius Violin Concerto, as well as delivering attractive melody in Brahms and Beethoven.

The programme for Prom 62 featured two well loved symphonies. But anyone expecting familiarity was in for a shock: Sir Roger Norrington has highly individual views on this music.

In his introduction to the programme, the orchestra’s Music Director Marios Papadopoulos says that it is the energy in Beethoven’s music which captures his attention, and this was certainly conveyed in the Oxford Philomusica’s performance of the piece.

Andris Nelsons and the CBSO brought their superb Beethoven cycle to a close with fine performances of the Eighth and Ninth Symphonies at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall.The Eighth Symphony suffers from sitting in the shade of the Seventh and Ninth, but Beethoven’s “Little” F major symphony has a great deal to offer.

After hearing the Welsh Sinfonia’s last concert in January 2013, I was pleased to have the opportunity to attend their Gala Finale concert this month. This was particularly the case since it included a première of a new composition by Roxanna Panufnik, daughter of Andrzej Panufnik, whose Epitaph I heard finely performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in March.

Benedetti’s Beethoven was changed, at late notice, to Lomeiko’s Tchaikovsky. Sadly, the renowned violinist Nicola Benedetti was not able to make the performance, but her replacement was wonderful. Internationally established Russian violinist and professor at the Royal College of Music, Natalia Lomeiko stepped up to play the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto in D major instead of Beethoven’s concerto.

Daniel Barenboim can be a frustrating – and frustrated – conductor. When his grand plans don’t quite come off, he can become irritable, his gestures more didactic and his brow ever more distractedly mopped. Not so in this concert, however.

If you move in academic, corporate or philanthropic circles, you will certainly have attended speeches and lectures about leadership, or come across relevant literature about it. Well, if you were in the Helsinki Music Center’s Concert Hall at 5pm last Saturday, you’d be sure that attending the previous week’s rehearsals would have saved you the need for leadership books and conferences.

Onwards Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra went, then, jumping forwards from a rousing Fifth to the Eighth, once again playing the later, even-numbered half of a ‘pair’ before the odd. Asked why the Seventh was much preferred publicly to the Eighth, Beethoven is apocryphally to have replied: “because the Eighth is so much better.

It must be heart-warming for a young composer, sharing the bill with Beethoven and Stravinsky, to know that the programme has been named after her piece. The clear, confident writing in Helen Grime's A Cold Spring (2009) effectively conveyed the visual contrast offered by sharp-edged, bright days at this time of year.

By far the smallest audience yet for the Hallé’s Beethoven Symphonies cycle gathered for this eighth instalment, conducted by Edward Gardner, and the absentees missed an evening of supreme charm and playfulness.Luciano Berio’s Rendering is a ‘restoration’ (not a completion, as the composer was very clear), of sketches for Schubert’s Tenth Symphony.