Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews

Bertrand Chamayou proves an ideal soloist for the quixotic and energy-driven Saint-Saëns Second Piano Concerto, but what happened to the “fix” in the idée fixe of the Berlioz Fantastic Symphony?

An afternoon of mostly enjoyable singing and music-making from the chorus and instrumentalists of La Fenice in an empty Teatro Malibran.

The question isn’t if Van Parys and Schoeters did right by Poe so much as if they did right by Debussy. Poe will prevail. Debussy’s opera remains unfinished. 

The darker sides of Romantic inventiveness are explored in Schumann’s neglected violin concerto and the clandestine woodland rustle of Dvořák’s G major symphony.

Thomas Søndergård steers the RSNO into the finale of their first digital season with Nicky Spence luminous in Britten’s Les Illuminations and the players joyous in Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

Stepping in at the last minute, conductor Thomas Søndergård offered a program that didn’t fully adhere to the orchestra’s planned exploration of Berlin in the Weimar era.

Jakub Hrůša with the Munich Philharmonic and Christian Schmitt extract maximum colour and effervescence from Poulenc’s Organ Concerto, whereas the conductor opts for lyrical spaciousness in Dvořák’s rarely-heard Fifth Symphony.

One of the few upsides to the current Covid-19 pandemic for the classical music world in Japan is that it has given opportunities to young home-grown talent.