Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Symphony no. 14, Op.135

Britten and Shostakovich rub shoulders at Kings Place in a programme that careers into darkness with the latter's desolate Fourteenth Symphony. 

Elena Stikhina and Vitalij Kowaljow provided an extra touch of class in Shostakovich’s sombre but moving Fourteenth Symphony, with Noseda and the LSO running riot in Beethoven’s Seventh.

Andris Nelsons' Mozart–Shostakovich pairing allowed the Boston Symphony winds to take the spotlight in the first half, leaving the strings and limited percussion to their task in the second. 

Robert Spano, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and soloists perfrom Shostakovich's Symphony no. 14. 

Southbank Centre’s The Rest is Noise festival is continuing this season with programming focusing on the second half of the 20th century. Tonight’s music was a part of the festival’s Britten centenary celebrations, adding in works by Copland and Shostakovich.

As my seatmate remarked to me after the concert, it is strange and wonderful to hear Benjamin Britten and Dmitri Shostakovich, who befriended each other late in life, begin to sound alike in their old age while remaining unmistakably themselves. I agreed.

'First impressions are often the truest', wrote Hazlitt. I was immediately struck by the amount of space on the Usher Hall stage, recently filled by so many large symphony orchestras. The Scottish Chamber Orchestra had plenty of space, a feature which was soon to be borne out in the music.

Unter der Leitung von Franz Welser Möst frönten die Philharmoniker gleich mehrmals dem Lebensende; unterstützt von Asmik Grigorian und Matthias Goerne.

Krieg, Kälte, Tod: Beim Konzert des Ensemble Resonanz mit Asmik Grigorian stockt einem der Atem.