Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | English | Oedipus: Music for a While, Z 583 no.2

The superstar countertenor revisit the site of one of their early successes, with hits from Monteverdi and the court of Louis XIII. It makes for an extraordinary evening.

While maybe not for the musical puritans, this was the perfect showcase for an exceptional group of musicians to demonstrate their formidable technical and interpretative talents and to respectfully give some new vitality to the magical works of Purcell.

Andreas Scholl and Collegium 1704 team up for a refreshing treatment of an early repertoire.

If you like your Purcell spiced up with some jazz improvisation and Middle-Eastern flavours, Philippe Jaroussky and L’Arpeggiata’s gig was for you. 

The International Wimbledon Music Festival is only in its fourth year, and yet it has world-class musicians coming to perform in SW19. The standard of music making on this opening night was second to none, and the quality matched that of some of London’s biggest venues.

The Academy of Ancient Music has been critically acclaimed in pursuing Baroque composers’ original stylistic intent, and this gave tonight’s concert the prospect of a faithful look into the period of 1650-1750. Here are a few of my highlights from this varied Robeco Summer Concert in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

17th Century Europe witnessed the rise of Italian opera and French ballet. These forms, and the distinct musical language of their composers, were highly influential on the music of England and Germany. The cosmopolitan music of Henry Purcell made up the bulk of The English Concert’s program, along with two instrumental works by his German contemporaries Heinrich Biber and Georg Muffat.

If one had idly wondered how a programme of English love songs, sung by a German, would be received by a Norwegian audience, in a wet and windy Bergen, the answer came loud and clear at this week's International Festival.

Back in London after a sell-out US tour, English tenor Ian Bostridge CBE, with his wonderful pianist Julius Drake, proved his extraordinary range and versatility as a singer with a programme featuring music by Tippett, Britten, Bach, Haydn and Weill. This special concert had an extra resonance, as it marked Sir John Tusa’s last day as Chairman of the Wigmore Hall Trust.

Right, we had our fun with the lively Scholl/Jaroussky concert in the Barbican in December, now for the serious stuff, Andreas Scholl singing the Purcell his admirers have wanted to hear for years. With one or two exceptions, the programme concentrated on Purcell's quieter, deeper and more reflective repertoire.

The countertenor voice seems to polarise opinion like no other - you either love it or hate it, there is little middle ground - and even amongst the aficionados (in whose number I count myself), there can be strong, almost tribal allegiances to one school or another and sometimes to individual proponents.