Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Sir Roger Norrington

After decades as a period instrument revolutionary, the 87-year old conductor bows out with “Dr Haydn's London Academy”, an entertaining recreation of concert-going in the 1790s.

Norrington was at the forefront of the period instrument revolution in Beethoven performance practice. Here, he returned to the Queen Elizabeth Hall with two major key symphonies. 

Sir Roger Norrington and a strong cast joined a Baroque-style London Philharmonic Orchestra in a highly accomplished Dido and Aeneas, preceded by Handel’s clean and stately Water Music.

Sir Roger Norrington's all-Mozart feast was a joyous evening dedicated solely to playing as the composer and his audience would have recognised it. His affable introduction and the OAE's superb playing made a splendid evening.

An overture, a concerto and a symphony by the incomparable Beethoven delivered with heroic commitment by the SWR Symphony Orchestra, Sir Roger Norrington and Francesco Piemontesi.

Norrington's Schumann cycle with the RSNO begins convincingly.

At 82, Sir Roger Norrington may have slowed down his conducting career but I’m very pleased to report that he still loves stirring things up at his concerts.

The Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra and Sir Roger Norrington give their very last concert together, with Robert Levin as soloist in Beethoven's fourth piano concerto.

The Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment celebrates its 30th birthday this season. Sunday's concert at the Royal Festival Hall displayed it in its full vitality.

The Zurich Chamber Orchestra (ZKO) recently played an unforgettable all-Beethoven programme at the city’s Tonhalle. Before launching into the Eighth Symphony, conductor Sir Roger warned us: “Buckle your seatbelts!”

The programme for Prom 62 featured two well loved symphonies. But anyone expecting familiarity was in for a shock: Sir Roger Norrington has highly individual views on this music.

From the insistent, driving opening to the sublime transcendence of the closing chorale, Norrington, the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and James Gilchrist give us a St John Passion to remember.

The pure joy that Mozart’s music can bring was emphasized in the Zurich Chamber Orchestra's concert at Cadogan Hall in London, featuring pianist Jonathan Biss and conducted by Sir Roger Norrington.

The second in the Proms Saturday Matinee series featured French Baroque music from the period of Louis XIV, performed by Les 24 Violons du Roy and conducted by Roger Norrington. Interestingly, there was some common ground with the Concert Spirituel concert I reviewed earlier in the Proms season in that they were both projects attempting to recreate 18th-century orchestras.

The first night of the Proms was, in this year of Olympic celebrations and the Diamond Jubilee, a tribute to all things English, featuring an impressive range of singers and a (somewhat appropriate) relay team of stellar English conductors. The programme began with a strange mixture of old and new.

The Stern Auditorium at Carnegie Hall is enough to catch anyone’s breath. But it wasn’t the grandeur of the hall that struck me; it was the fact that the conductor’s podium was missing from the stage. A bold statement: it was clear Sir Roger Norrington was going to conduct the Orchestra of St. Luke’s his own way.Kicking off the evening’s performance was Haydn’s Symphony no. 39 in G minor.

To dispel the kind of causeless tiredness which one might be tempted to put down to age, I think of Rameau, who only took up writing opera at the age of 50 - and henceforth I will think of Les Boréades, which he composed at the age of 80. Although rehearsed in 1763, the year before Rameau's death, the opera was never performed. The surviving suite of dances emerged only in the 20th century.

The poetry of Arthur Rimbaud was, to borrow a phrase from the 1960s, "way out there." His 1870s collection Les Illuminations inspired Benjamin Britten, who set a selection of the poems to music: the words are surreal, bizarre, sometimes erotic, always onomatopoeic and packed with interesting sounds.

Mahler's Ninth Symphony – his last complete work in the genre – was written in 1908-9, against a backdrop of considerable personal tragedy and uncertainty.

This was without a doubt the best performance of Mahler's First Symphony. Norrington's humor comes through and complements his superb musicianship.The First often gets bogged down, but this performance was bright and alwaysexciting giving the instrumentalists enough room to show their skills... andwhat skills.I have no doubt that the NHK Symphony is the greatest orchestraat this time.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-88), the second son of J.S. Bach, was a hugely talented composer in his own right, but his music is still rarely heard on the concert stage. In fact, it is not just his works, but the whole pre-classical repertory between Bach/Handel and Haydn/Mozart still lies largely unexplored except in recordings.

Im Festspielkonzert der Camerata Salzburg fasziniert ein altersjunger Roger Norrington mit der Überzeugungskraft klangreinen Musizierens.

Bei seiner Rückkehr zur Camerata Salzburg begeistert Norrington – sich selbst oft zurücknehmend und genießend – mit Wagner und Schönberg.

En compagnie de l'Orchestre de Paris et de Jean-Guihen Queyras, le chef britannique proposait un programme des plus passionnants au public parisien.

Schmackhafte Debütleistungen sorgen für famose Ausdeutungen zweier Repertoire-Hammer.

Für mich war das die Wiedergeburt des Violinkonzertes von Mendelssohn, das ich doch zu kennen glaubte – ungemein faszinierend, spannend, und belebend!

On attendait avec impatience le retour de Philippe Cassard dans le rôle-titre du Keuchel 482 de Mozart... Au pupitre, Sir Roger Norrington : figure socratique, la désinvolture du geste et la puissance du vrai, dans toute son intelligibilité.

Oliver Schnyders Spiel ist sehr agil, präzise und virtuos, die Zusammenarbeit mit dem ZKO perfekt; es war begeisternd, Läufe und gebrochene Akkordpassagen auch mal leise, fast säuselnd ausgeführt zu hören.

Als Zuhörer geriet man ganz in den Sog dieser faszinierenden Musik: eine Meisterleistung sowohl auf Seiten des Dirigenten wie des Orchesters!

Une promenade musicale mettant en lumière les filiations musicales d'une grande dynastie de musiciens, entre héritage et modernité, école allemande et italienne, baroque et prémices du Romantisme.

"Fasten your seat belts": Norrington legt los und präsentiert in Zürich weitaus mehr als einen virtuosen Kehraus.