Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Walton

The Minnesota Chorale does Leonard Bernstein and Sir William Walton proud, with the Bernstein Chichester Psalms a particularly impressive presentation.  

The BSO deliver a malevolent Walton Symphony no. 1 and a joyous Elgar In the South. Meanwhile, Trpčeski provides lovely moments in Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto no. 1. 

English and Russian repertoire for Switzerland's oldest symphony orchestra. 

This program was a good one to inspire your confidence about the future of choreography.

Marking his debut with the NDR Elbphilharmonieorchester, Andrew Manze nails his colours to the mast with Purcell and Vaughan Williams as well as accompanying Alban Gerhardt in Walton.

Fagan embraces multiple generations of dancers and they reward the audience with the richness and depth of their experience.

Kirill Karabits and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra brought a wide ranging programme from the south coast for their annual Proms visit.

Sir Andrew Davis led the BBC SO in a recreation of Sir Malcolm Sargent's 500th Prom, a lengthy programme that failed to inspire.

The RPO were on ripe form in works that still need such fine advocacy, and which deserved a much larger audience.

Richmond Ballet's dancers are an engaging bunch who aim to please and their goodwill radiated from the stage.

A pleasant afternoon's entertainment with grand sweeps and some beautiful singing by Roderick Williams.

Three English composers receive fine performances from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

Breaking up is hard to do. If his First Symphony is anything to go by, William Walton took it particularly badly.

The final pair of Sibelius symphonies is memorably performed by the LPO under Osmo Vänskä, with Tasmin Little as the authoritative soloist in Walton's violin concerto.

Charles Dutoit, who recently turned 80, brought energy and engagement to a vigorous and stimulating program of works by British composers.

Shakespearean actors join the National Symphony Orchestra to open its season with first of two concerts celebrating the Bard.

The CBSO's inaugural “Spirit Of England” concert featured familiar works by Beethoven, paired with rarities by Butterworth and Walton.  

The BBC Concert Orchestra and Keith Lockhart offered a snapshot of the Bard's lasting artistic impact with music for composed for stage and screen, from this side of the Atlantic and beyond the pond.

Bright and energetic Walton and a promising, highly lyrical Concerto from Watkins, followed by taut Webern and commanding Brahms from Søndergård and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

Sir Frederick Ashton was a choreographic genius but not everything he created rose to that level, as this program showed.

“If music be the food of love, play on, give me excess of it.” There was certainly plenty of Shakespeare-inspired music on the bill for the London Philharmonic Orchestra's celebration of The Bard. 

The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra produced a varied programme at their Lighthouse concert, but with mixed results: illuminating Walton, but uneven Sibelius.

Alexander Melnikov astonishes in Beethoven's 'Emperor' Concerto. 

Two Russian Tales: Stravinsky’s Mavra and Walton’s The Bear are an unexpected glittering delight at The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s Opera Studio in Glasgow. 

Soloist Barnabas Kelemen impresses in Szymanowski's Violin Concerto no. 2, while conductor Alexander Shelley impresses with a chirpy Classical Symphony and a brooding Walton First Symphony.

NYC Ballet's fashion-forward program of five new works helps to keep things interesting.

Cinematic sweep was on full display as JoAnn Falletta and the VSO/VSC thrilled with vital interpretations of three early 20th Century works by Bax, Respighi and Walton.

  The BBC National Orchestra of Wales on fine form showcasing British composers, with a little help from Chloe Hanslip and Ailish Tynan

A mixed programme thrills, launching the season with a bang

Leeds Festival and Leeds Philharmonic Choir joined the BBC Philharmonic in a splendid performance of Walton's Belshazzar's Feast.

The Hallé under Markus Stenz were on fine form in a rarity, a world première and an infrequently performed symphony.

Orient meets Occident in three performances of English works conducted by the Japanese maestro Tadaaki Otaka.

What an auspicious first outing for Andrew Manze with the LPO, concluding with a definitive account of Walton's First Symphony. 

As part of the Festival Hall’s Sunday matinee series, John Wilson programmed three inspirational works by Bax, Walton and Vaughan Williams. 

Canadian soloist James Ehnes and guest conductor Andrew Litton gave an unsentimental and appealing performance of an all-English programme.

Sakari Oramo takes the reins for his first Last Night of the Proms, alongside dazzling violinist Janine Jansen and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

We’ve already reached the penultimate week at the BBC Proms and Air Miles are clocking up apace with orchestras visiting from far afield. This evening saw the Singapore Symphony make its Proms debut, bringing in its hand-luggage a European première of a work by Chinese composer Zhou Long.

Charles Dutoit and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra journey on a Roman holiday, taking in the pines, fountains and festivals of the Eternal City. 

Inspired by the sight of sixteen swans in flight, the great swinging horn call in the final movement of Sibelius Fifth Symphony is one of the most life-affirming moments in the composer’s output. If this ‘Swan Hymn’ glowed rather than blazed brightly last night, it was the journey there which impressed in the hands of Thomas Søndergård, Principal Conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

Neville Marriner conducts Christopher Palmer’s arrangement of a Walton film score, while Joshua Bell delivers magic with Max Bruch and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.

  Last-minute Beamish replacement is a treat alongside accomplished Gurney and Walton.

The BBC Philharmonic's chief conductor Juanjo Mena and violinst Tamsin in an astonishing performance of Moeran's Violin Concerto. Mena also brings his own interpretation of Elgar's Enigma Variations.

The National Youth Orchestras of Scotland Junior Orchestra's summer concert: one hundred talented 8-13 year-olds from all over Scotland have fun taking their first orchestral steps.

There was a collaborative spirit underlying this performance with the London Symphony Orchestra and Antonio Pappano, joined for a brilliant Brahms concerto by Janine Jansen. Walton's First Symphony and a Peter Maxwell Davies fanfare also marvelled.

The Scottish Ensemble playfully challenged the audience to decide game-show style, which country’s string music won the night: Germany or Britain? Indeed, the concert was a game of two halves with Britain being represented by William Walton and Martin Suckling in the first and Germany by Leopold Hurt and Brahms in the second.

To begin their week-long run in London at Sadler’s Wells, the Birmingham Royal Ballet presented a diverse triple bill of works choreographed by Artistic Director and British ballet icon David Bintley CBE.

In the second week of their 2013/14 season, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of Peter Oundjian, presented three major works, beginning with two which were definitely not the same-old, same-old repertoire. The event positioned two English pieces as a stark contrast to the Russian one in the second half.Benjamin Britten never completed his clarinet concerto.

Hot on the heels of this year’s Hollywood Rhapsody Prom came its less glamorous, perhaps geekier sibling, the Film Music Prom. There was less of the fanfare and opulence here; this was about the silver screen (and by that, I don’t mean the sort that is coming back into use for 3D films) and sci-fi.

When a programme is well put together and nicely themed, it is quite easy to turn one’s attention away from the sound of music, and onto the history of music. PCM 4 at Cadogan Hall was breezily introduced by the BBC compere as a programme marking Britten’s centenary, exploring his relationship with his peers, and celebrating his friend Lutoslawski. Yes, it did all that.

Prom 31 seems to have been loosely based around a royal theme, with two of several nods at this year’s Proms to the Coronation anniversary: explicitly, in the case of William Walton’s Orb and Sceptre march, which he wrote for the 1953 ceremony, and obliquely by way of Edmund Rubbra’s Ode to the Queen, which the BBC commissioned for the Coronation celebrations.