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Britten's Cello Symphony and a no-holds-barred account of Shostakovich’s mighty Tenth Symphony at Snape Maltings

An inventive programme frames new music by a genre-defying composer and guitarist in a striking late-night concert.

Painting pictures in music can often be stimulating. In a programme inspired by the sea and by pictorial art, Elim Chan, Catriona Morison and the BBC NOW reveal the underlying colour. 

The BBC NOW gave us two hearty Russian works and celebrated the lunar landing with a world premiere of Huw Watkins' The Moon.

The War of the Romantics – Brahms v Wagner – from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Nathalie Stutzmann, followed by an energetically powerful Mozart Requiem with the BBC National Chorus of Wales on fine form.

Evocative Smyth and impressively detailed Strauss from Tausk, and warm Dvořák with soulful playing from Daniel Müller-Schott.

Even if Hubert Parry was overshadowed by Holst and Vaughan Williams, this was a splendid concert of British music. 

Thomas Søndergård’s final performance as chief of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales sees them pull off Mahler 8 in style.

To works by Mendelssohn and Schumann, Søndergård added music by two impressive female composers who died far too young and whose works are far less known than they should be, Lili Boulanger and Morfydd Owen. 

Ryan Wigglesworth conducts a Huw Watkins première and a grand-scale account of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony

Thomas Søndergård conducts the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in Mosolov, Shostakovich and Beethoven with Igor Levit

Affecting Britten, distinctive Elias and popular Elgar, with a curio of arranged Purcell thrown in, from Ryan Wigglesworth and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

An underwhelming performance that fell prey to poor interpretive judgements. 

Some rare and some great Shostakovich meet in concert while the BBC National Orchestra of Wales make an engrossing case for Sibelius' great Second Symphony.

Vivid playing thrills at the Proms, but fell short of engrossing storytelling.

A thrilling finale to the 2017 Cardiff Singer of the World

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

Luscious orchestral and choral sounds bring Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé to shimmering life.

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.

In the first of two successive Proms appearances, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales gave solid performances of two popular scores from the central European repertoire. Malcolm Hayes’s new work, however, proved to be the highlight of the evening. 

A superb performance from Chloë Hanslip in the world premiere of Berkeley's Violin Concerto, with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under Jac van Steen polished but lacking bite in Dukas and Prokofiev.

Wagner's Die Walküre and Tippett's A Child of Our Time both attempt to capture the essence of humanity. Despite making for an unusual pairing, the programme was an effective one.

Pascal Rophé, Elizabeth Atherton and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales celebrate Dutilleux’s centenary year with five contemporary works associated with the composer

In a quirky programme featuring English, Welsh and Russian music the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales began their new season at St David’s Hall showcasing, with mixed results, their composer-in-association Huw Watkins, Elgar and three Russian composers at different stages in their careers.

Making its fourth Proms appearance this season, the BBC National Orchestra transported the audience from the Orient in Nielsen’s Aladdin, to Ancient Greece for a world première, then to heaven in Mahler’s Symphony no. 4.

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

The celebratory, cerebral and contradictory elements inherent in this diverse programme of Haydn, Mozart, Poulenc and Stravinsky didn’t quite disguise some uneven performances in Søndergård’s third prom concert.

The BBC's Ten Pieces project culminates in a spectacular Proms event, some of it confusing for adults, but all well-received by the children.

Cardiff Castle hosted an entertaining bout of medieval jousting yesterday afternoon, but in the evening all eyes and ears turned to the vocal jousting in St David’s Hall.

Grand Holst and the première of Mark Bowden's A Violence of Gifts, performed with bombastic gusto and colour.

B Tommy Andersson's music promises more than it delivers in this showcase concert with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. 

Thomas Søndergård's over-subtle touch in conducting Haydn, Beethoven and Mozart has some delicate colouring but fails to reach the deeper drama.

BBC National Orchestra of Wales's afternoon concert series brings unusual works to light, but the small auditorium can make some of the heavier late-romantic orchestration overwhelming – to the point of being overpowering.

The BBC National Orchestra of Wales crossed the river to England to deliver an evening of the music of Brahms culminating in the giant Symphony no. 1 in C minor, Op. 68.

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.

Birthday boy Richard Strauss was celebrated again at the Proms with two early works, one an acknowledged masterpiece and the other a problem child, in an odd programme that included works by Mozart and Nielsen from the BBC NOW.

A notable London première for William Mathias' finely crafted Violin Concerto, but a fierce, bruising account of Elgar's First Symphony disappoints at the BBC NOW's Prom. 

Thierry Fischer and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales presented an eclectic programme, with an exciting première by Simon Holt and the many different facets of 20th century French orchestral music.

With so much focus - understandably - on London's concerts during the Proms season, it is a delight to be able to listen to and attend various other related performances across the UK. 

The joy of listening to Brahms’s piano concertos in a concert hall – especially one with such fine acoustics as St David’s Hall, Cardiff – is that textures and harmonies that can sound thick, muddy and ill-balanced in recordings come across with all their intricate, closely-woven contrapuntal writing clear and thrilling.

A celebration of Wales in the St David's Day Gala in Cardiff. 

Arcomis is a Cardiff-based organisation concerned with the promotion and commissioning of new music. Modest yet effective, most of their work is at an essential grass-root level, yet, seemingly out of nowhere, they have conjured an incredibly bold and wide-ranging three-day festival of brass based at Cardiff’s St David’s Hall, the Cardiff University Music Department and the Royal Welsh College of

I find it difficult to remember the last time I attended a concert in which I was met with just about everything that I wanted to hear, settled alongside facets of performance that I hadn’t yet encountered. Perhaps tonight was, indeed, my first such experience.Thomas Søndergård’s rendition of Poulenc’s Gloria realised everything that I find I intuitively hope to hear from it.

Only at the Proms could you hear two stalwarts of the 20th-century English school alongside a new concerto by an Indian classical sitar player. To be fair the work, by Holst was entitled Indra and has its roots in the composers study of Indian Sanskrit, which led to a number of works based on Hindu myths – culminating in his beautiful opera Savitri.

The perky new conductor of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Thomas Søndergård, made his second Proms outing with an exciting programme of contrasting works which kicked off with the first UK performance of Colin Matthews’ Turning Point.First performed by the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra in 2006, Turning Point is an eighteen-minute work of considerable technical skill.

It’s rather unusual to find one Russian in a programme with three British composers, but Prom 16, with Jac van Steen and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, brought together two of this season’s themes. The first in the 2013 Proms’ Tchaikovsky symphony cycle (no. 4) was presented alongside British works including one by the composer Granville Bantock, who is featuring in a total of five Proms.

Thomas Søndergård made his BBC Proms debut at the end of a successful first season at the helm of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, bringing a hefty programme of Stenhammar, Szymanowski and Strauss to the Royal Albert Hall.It was a fascinating programme, with a first half of relatively underperformed works prefacing Strauss’ popular Alpine Symphony.

Adoring and knowledgeable fans, lots of good humour and a tendency to wear silly hats: this description could fit any Proms audience, but Prom 2 was not quite the usual Prom. For one thing, the silly hats were mostly fezzes, and the audience’s expert knowledge extended to being able to identify the weird alien life forms that had invaded the Royal Albert Hall.

François-Xavier Roth conducted the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in a varied programme of Mozart, Webern and Strauss, concluding with a powerful performance of Also Sprach Zarathustra at St David’s Hall in Cardiff.It was hard to spot a linking factor between the programmed works, but they seemed to complement each other nicely.

On Wednesday evening the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales, conducted by Adrian Partington, presented a programme of choral music by the two musical friends Poulenc and Britten.