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The Baroque confectionery of Herbert Fritsch's production of Handel's oratorio belies a serious core which is all too close to today's headlines.

Jonathan Nott and the OSR bring surgical precision to Debussy’s vivid sketches, while Khatia Buniatishvili’s Brahms evokes the soulful, improvisational warmth of a pre-war piano legend at the Elbphilharmonie. 

In Hamburg, Kazuki Yamada and the CBSO navigate the thorny brilliance of Walton’s First Symphony, proving that ‘difficult’ music can offer an evening’s most profound human connection.

Anne-Sophie Mutter’s commanding presence meet the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s exceptional adaptability, yielding a concert that balances tradition-steeped authority with modern transparency, rhythmic vitality and the orchestra’s own electrifying spontaneity.

Jean Rondeau’s anniversary tribute to Louis Couperin reveals a refined but inward-looking aesthetic – beautifully controlled, yet ultimately lacking the rhetorical energy, physicality, and communicative spark essential to this music.

Último helecho, by Nina Laisné, François Chaignaud and Nadia Larcher, is a profound reflection involving the identity of a population and the repercussions of the various influences that have been layered over time.

A last-minute programme change doubles Batiashvili’s Tchaikovsky at the Elbphilharmonie, but repetition is transformed into fresh revelation. 

Amid snowbound Hamburg, Joshua Bell leads the Academy of St Martin in the Fields with warmth and lyricism, though Brahms’ concerto reveals limits, while Schumann’s symphony fully blossoms.

Cavalli’s Messa concertata and Venetian polychoral masterpieces shine in Berlin’s Philharmonie, with a heartfelt, immersive New Year’s experience of ritual grandeur and warmth.

Ensemble Masques brings French Baroque to life at the Elbphilharmonie, with Olivier Fortin’s radiant harpsichord, spirited strings and vivid interplay revealing the expressive richness of Couperin, Rameau, Forqueray and Corrette.

Vox Luminis bring radiant Advent performances to northern Germany, filling Hamburg’s winter evening with joy, clarity and winter-firewood charm.

The – much belated – world premiere of Blitzstein's 1929 one-act opera is paired with Bernstein's Second Symphony, performed by the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra.