Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | English | Flourish with Fireworks, Op.22

Altogether it was the sort of music Gerard Hoffnung might have composed if he had ever held a serious music festival.

The Orchestra of the Royal Academy of Music and The Julliard School, with Edward Gardner in an impressively ambitious programme, with tragic Britten from James Ehnes, and a remarkable UK premiere from Anna Thorvaldsdottir.

Marking the centenary of the end of the First World War, Anna Meredith and 59 Productions' work proves a powerful, often surprisingly upbeat, commission.

After Knussen's Flourish with Fireworks, a program of mighty works from the early 20th century find Spano and the ASO on superb form.

For one of the most iconic works in the art music repertoire, The Rite of Spring actually isn’t performed very often. This week it made a welcome appearance on a New York Philharmonic program under the baton of British conductor Daniel Harding. It turned out to be the main event of an otherwise routine evening.The concert opened with a short work by Oliver Knussen, Flourish with Fireworks.