Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | English | Notations, for orchestra

A BBC day of talks and concerts yields delight and revelation in equal measure. 

A masterful performance of Boulez's Notations crown a memorable evening rich delights, including rapturous Debussy and three very fine world premieres. 

The Lucerne Festival recently celebrated the life and musical achievement of the great French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez on the occasion of his 90th birthday.

Exquisite Boulez and Francesconi from Mälkki and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, before the conductor pushed the ensemble to its limits in The Planets.

Ruth Mackenzie, Holland Festival’s vivacious and invigorating new director, closed her first edition with a twelve hour Prom, reinventing it as a mini-festival at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw.

The four-part concert, conducted by Franz Welser-Möst, emphasized Boulez's relationship with the orchestra as composer, teacher, conductor, and friend, with four musical works to illustrate those characteristics.

Following on from the Contemporary Chamber Works concert of the LSO Futures series, François-Xavier Roth was back less than an hour later with the Symphonic Sound Worlds programme. This formed the second part of his investigation into the nature of the orchestra, its traditional forms and generic makeup.