Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Yefim Bronfman

The New York Philharmonic features two early Ligeti works, a new concerto for Yefim Bronfman by Elena Firsova, and Brahms' Serenade no. 1.

Sumptuous Wagner and effortless Mahler from the Bayrisches Staatsorchester, cleanly expressive Schumann from Yefim Bronfman and richly communicative singing from Louise Alder. 

The first of four Rachmaninov anniversary concerts shared by Zurich’s two fine orchestras is an audio feast, climaxing with the choral symphony, The Bells. 

Yefim Bronfman's artistry raises Montreal's OSM to new heights, thanks in no small part to guest conductor Thomas Søndergård.

In his rendition of Beethoven's C minor Concerto, Yefim Bronfman's ability to mix powerful and graceful statements was as amazing as ever.

Replacing Mikko Franck at short notice, Barenboim joins Yefim Bronfman for a revised, all-Brahms programme.

New works by Michael Abels and Clarice Assad, coupled with Britten’s early Sinfonietta and Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto, with the impeccable Yefim Bronfman, made for an exceptional concert conducted by Robert Spano.

Yefim Bronfman brings old-school showmanship to the Third Piano Concerto, while Yannick Nézet-Séguin summons the intimacy of a chamber orchestra in the Coriolan overture.

Yefim Bronfman returned to Severance Hall for Schnittke’s intriguing Concerto for Piano and Strings, followed by a Beethoven quartet recast for string orchestra.

All the light, tuneful melodies and tuttis of the Ninth Symphony are still somehow Shostakovich, but a Shostakovich during a rare period where he seems to be taking antidepressants.

The first subscription concert at the Grand Old Lady of Locust Street since 2001 nodded to the institution's august history.

Dvořák’s rarely heard Fourth Symphony and Janáček’s brassy Sinfonietta bookended a Mozart piano concerto with Yefim Bronfman in this varied Cleveland Orchestra program.

Yefim Bronfman's performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24 highlighted Maestro Lorenzo Viotti's guest-conducting appearance with Montreal's Orchestre Symphonique.

A new work by Steve Reich shared the stage with two Beethoven favorites. While neither composer particularly illuminated the other, they shared their program nicely.

It can’t be easy for conductor Andrés Orozco-Estrada to have to play second fiddle to senior maestros on the Vienna Philharmonic’s tour.

Yefim Bronfman was the powerful soloist in Bartók’s Second Piano Concerto. Welser-Möst’s expressionistic reading of Prokofiev’s Third Symphony evoked nightmares of tormented souls.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin's final tour as Chief Conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic brought out the tender side of Bruckner and Liszt. 

Nelsons proved again that he has a special affinity for the music of Dmitri Shostakovich and for the Fourth Symphony in particular.

Nikolaj Znaider led The Cleveland Orchestra in two works that shared a key but were otherwise quite disparate: Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto with Yefim Bronfman, and Elgar’s Second Symphony.

Esa-Pekka Salonen's return to Walt Disney concert hall highlighted his gifts as composer and conductor alike and underscored how an orchestra can sound genuinely 21st century.

After a revelatory performance with his Bavarian RSO at the Barbican, Mariss Jansons was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society for being "the quintessential musicians’ musician".

Tonal finesse, graceful articulation and magical simplicity mattered more than anything else in Yefim Bronfman's version of Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto.

Andris Nelsons has been a frequent visitor to the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra since 2008, often conducting the symphonies of Shostakovich. 

The chemistry between Muti and the CSO continues to sizzle in a Rossini overture, a Mendelssohn symphony, and a Beethoven piano concerto with Yefim Bronfman.

Semyon Bychkov and Yefim Bronfman try to bring new relevance to Tchaikovsky's music.

Yefim Bronfman was the astonishing piano soloist for the Cleveland premiere of of Jörg Widmann's Trauermarsch. Franz Welser-Möst then led a transporting performance of Bruckner's Seventh Symphony.

Bronfman attacked the concerto with alacrity and a capacity to draw sound from the piano which was breathtaking.

In a time when death and mourning lack any public or communal aspect, where the funeral procession has ceased to exist save for royalty and the occasional head of state, what relevance does the traditional dirge have?

The SFS presents the US première of Widmann’s work alongside an impressive renditions of CPE Bach and Brahms.

Yefim Bronfman was a magisterial soloist for Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto, plus a rousing Choral Fantasy.

The stark aesthetic contrast between Ives’ Symphony no. 4 and Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto no. 1 led to an evening of music that was diverse, challenging and very entertaining.

As Valery Gergiev's tenure comes to an end, the LSO presented a concert of the repertoire he is most a home in, to thrilling results. 

After an exhausting multiple rehearsal week the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra kicked off its current season with a rousing reading of Beethoven’s Fidelio Overture.

Gergiev and the LSO in an explosive, primeval Rite of Spring.

Yefim Bronfman, a prime interpreter of Prokofiev, presented powerful performances of the composer's landmark piano sonatas at Ravinia.

Elegant Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra team with seasoned soloists, Yefim Bronfman and Miah Persson, for peerless Bartók and Mahler.

A UK première, movements from a rarely performed Prokofiev ballet by Prokofiev and a revitalising performance of Petrushka demonstrates the LPO's bold programming. 

A mini-Brahms-fest, with both piano concertos, but no symphonies from The Cleveland Orchestra. 

Although deprived of hearing Ravel's Shéhérazade, there was much else to enjoy in the Berlin Philharmonic's performances of Wagner, Widmann and Sibelius.

Alan Gilbert leads the New York Philharmonic with guest pianist Yefim Bronfman in a concert of contrasts: Bartók's Piano Concerto no. 3 and Bruckner's Symphony no. 8 in C minor.

Jukka-Pekka Saraste and the Oslo Philharmonic give disappointingly cold performances of Brahms' Piano Concerto no. 1 and Tchaikovsky's Symphony no. 6.

Jaap van Zweden and Hong Kong Phil's Der Rosenkavalier Suite full of swagger, sarcasm and humour

It is the rare concert for which one can say that each half of the program would have sufficed as the sole offering of the night; when each half contains personality, wisdom, a sense of history, life-risking music-making, and attractive and important repertoire.

Tonight’s The Rest is Noise concert, featuring the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Michael Tilson Thomas and Yefim Bronfman, took on one of 20th-century music’s biggest questions. Anyone who has been following this huge concert series – or indeed the accompanying BBC documentary The Sound and the Fury – will no doubt be acquainted by now with Arnold Schoenberg and his angry, radical ways.

On Sunday night Shriver Hall was packed with Baltimore opera fans who had gathered to enjoy a solo recital of the internationally acclaimed opera “anti-diva” Magdalena Kožená. True to her reputation, this Czech mezzo-soprano came on stage dressed in a casual black gown, which (ignoring the dress change tradition established by her stage colleagues) she chose to wear all night long.

Capping off their two-weekend Mozart Festival, the Dallas Symphony played three minor-key masterworks this weekend, plus one major-key selection. Music in minor keys is the exception to the Mozartian rule – only two each of the 27 piano concerti and 41 symphonies are in minor.

Johannes Brahms was a Romantic with a capital R. Born six years after Beethoven’s death, Brahms was so determined to continue the composer’s colossal musical legacy that he labored over his First Symphony (often nicknamed “Beethoven’s Tenth”) for over a decade. He spent nearly as much time laboring over his Piano Concerto no.

The San Francisco Symphony recently returned from an exhausting six-city, ten-concert tour of Asia and now enter the month of December with a selection of seasonal, festive performances.

One can be forgiven for expecting that a Sunday afternoon concert should consist of light classics to which one doesn’t need to apply too much mental exertion. The works in yesterday afternoon’s performance by the MET Orchestra under music director Fabio Luisi were anything but light. In fact, I suspect that the electrifying energy of the concert would be enough to keep me going for a long time.