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

The greatest music of the 18th century – no arguments, please – is given a fine reading at London's Barbican. 

A claim was made not to authenticity, but merely to “a chance to hear the work anew”.

The Dunedin Consort explores the 1723 Thomaskantor shortlist:  Georg Philipp Telemann, Christoph Graupner and Johann Sebastian Bach in a programme directed by John Butt. 

I Fagiolini and the English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble give a very special performance at Kings Place. 

Tenor Nicholas Mulroy directs a one-voice-to-a-part account of Bach's St Matthew Passion, featuring some splendid singing. 

Handel's Christmas classic gets a fresh lick of paint from John Butt and colleagues. 

An outstanding performance from Christina Pluhar's army of generals, but a flawed Barbican live stream. 

John Butt’s musicians show that Bach’s secular cantatas have just as much to offer as the sacred.

It was unfair to pair the exquisite madrigals and songs of Barbara Strozzi with a weighty piece by Monteverdi.

Reinhard Goebel's Messiah with Royal Northern Sinfonia had good moments but the overall performance didn't convince. 

The Dunedins venture south to show London how to play and sing Purcell.

A joyously fresh and zesty Orfeo, played on a selection of period instruments and with a magnificent leading tenor, makes for a superb evening of Monteverdi with Sir John Eliot Gardiner. 

Bach's St John Passion thrills the audience at Valletta International Baroque Festival. 

John Butt and Dunedin Consort delight Dunbar Parish Church with Acis and Galatea

Stephen Layton leads the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra in a thrillingly dramatic account of Bach's masterpiece. 

A rousing opening to the Valletta International Baroque Festival: a performance of Handel’s Messiah.   

An authoritative account of Bach's music for Advent from Jos van Veldhoven and the Nederlandse Bachvereniging in Amsterdam.

Friday’s two Proms had a theme running through them: Resurrection, Easter and Ascension. I wasn’t quite sure how I would feel about listening to Bach’s small-scale oratorios after Mahler’s mighty “Resurrection” Symphony, but I needn’t have worried. Compared to Mahler’s angst and doubt in the symphony, Bach’s unwavering Christian faith was reassuring.

Mr McFall’s Chamber has a reputation for bringing surprise and delight to audiences, with a track record of unusual and compelling repertoire, often collaborating with both local and international artists.

Bach’s Passion according to St John the Evangelist is not an easy work. Whilst saying I am a “fan” of Bach is one of the greatest understatements possible, this Passion is nonetheless an intense work for any concert-goer (seasoned or amateur) including myself. Over two hours in length, it is a test on both the audience and, quite obviously, the performers.

Passion is not for the faint-hearted. This performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion weighed in at three hours (excluding interval). However, my attention did not waver, and this seemed true of the rest of enraptured audience.

In light of this year’s Britten centenary, The Welsh Sinfonia has slipped its foot in the door with what will be one of many commemorative concerts to be given over the next eleven months.

Seasonal concert programmes come in all shapes and sizes. Reflecting the many sides of Christmas, they range from the commercial to the spiritual, from bombastic celebrity endorsement to the simplicity of choristers by candlelight.

Few concert programmes can feature such different works based on the same inspiration, but the BBC Philharmonic managed the intricacies of Bach and the grandeur of Bruckner with great success. The biggest tragedy of the evening was the audience: the whole top tier of seating was closed, and the stalls were barely half full.On his appointment as Kantor of the Leipzig Thomaskirche in 1723, J.S.

The motto of the Lammermuir Festival, now in its third year, is “beautiful music in beautiful places”. Few settings are more striking than St Mary’s Parish Church in Haddington.

The scene is 1612 in Venice: a great battle has been won against the dreaded Ottoman Empire, and in celebration, evening prayers are ordered to be set to music specially composed by the great Giovanni Gabrieli, Claudio Monteverdi and others.

The Dunedin Consort are, as I write, engaged in recording Bach's Brandenburg Concertos. On the eve of this undertaking, they presented the third and final part of their Brandenburg/Cantata series. The format of paired concerto and cantata in either half contained a novelty: this was the first time I'd heard the consort play a composer other than Bach.

There's nothing like a Brandenburg to blow away Christmas cobwebs. Alongside contrasting cantatas, the Dunedin Consort offered the 3rd and 5th from Bach's 1721 set of six concerti grossi. This made for a compact and nicely balanced programme, contrasting the sacred with the secular and vocal with purely instrumental timbres.

A true highlight of this year's London Handel Festival was a performance of the dramatic oratorio Saul, featuring a large cast of young soloists, including several previous finalists of the Festival's annual singing competition, all now getting well established in their solo careers.

On Saturday night, a large and diverse audience gathered in Leeds Town Hall to hear Leeds Festival Chorus and the Northern Sinfonia perform an all-Mozart programme, which provided an appropriate and atmospheric end to the composer's birthday week. The evening began with the Symphony No.40 in G Minor.

Das Concerto Copenhagen unter der Leitung von Lars Ulrik Mortensen eröffnet mit Israel in Egypt das diesjährige Resonanzen-Festival.

Le 8 novembre 2015, Sir John Eliot Gardiner interprète l'Orfeo de Monteverdi en version de concert dans la Galerie des Glaces. La qualité sans failles de The English Baroque Soloists, The Monteverdi Choir, et de chaque chanteur soliste a résulté en une interprétation qu'on pourrait qualifier de parfaite...en tout cas inoubliable.