Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Robin Tritschler

Mozart’s early youthful 29th Symphony felt rather misplaced in this otherwise solemn concert from Rafael Payare, Ulster Orchestra and the Belfast Philharmonic Choir. 

Ailish Tynan's powerful soprano soared above the massive forces of the choir in the thundering "Libera Me" – a wall of sound that blew the audience away.

The restrained pacing of Larcher's opera suited the intimate setting of the Werkstattbühne.

Two contraltos in one room is a high concentration of contraltos; except that one of them appeared in the role of conductor.

Based on Irish mythology, Opera Theatre Company deiver a compelling concert performance of an exceedingly rare Irish opera Eithne 

Reflections on mortality provided by the French contralto Nathalie Stutzmann conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir in two works by Richard Strauss and Mozart.

The legendary Kings College Choir, Cambridge, conducted by their very own Stephen Cleobury, was accompanied by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment on period instruments at the Royal Albert Hall.

Stravinsky, Delius's evokation of the experience of Norwegain mountains, Rachmaninov and Tchaikosky in a stunning concert by the Hallé, the Hallé Choir and Sir Mark Elder 

The NSO, Philharmonic Chorus under the baton of Macelaru give a riveting account of Beethoven's Missa solemnis.

Sir Mark Elder and the Halle introduce Vaughan Williams masterwork Sancta civitas to the Proms.

Weddings bring out the cynic in me. They also bring out the cynic in Don Alfonso and it’s at a wedding breakfast that John Fulljames sets his production of Così fan tutte. 

A rendition of The Creation in Auckland that had one marvelling anew at Haydn’s ingenuity and spirit. 

Britten's score achieves his usual kaleidoscope of different colours, played marvellously by the City of London Sinfonia under Steuart Bedford. Annilese Miskimmon's production yields an intense dose of psycho-dramatic tension.

Kirill Karabits’ imaginative programme revealed CPE Bach as a difficult composer to place, with a symphony bearing all the hallmarks of a young Mozart and an ode with pre-echoes of Haydn’s The Creation, counterbalanced by the UK première of his 1784 St John Passion where, in the chorales at least, CPE demonstrated that he was a chip off the old block.

Barbican Britten: Phaedra is just one of the events in the venue’s two-week celebration of the composer’s centenary. The programme presents four pieces choreographed by Richard Alston to Benjamin Britten’s music. Alston’s choreography is well suited to Britten’s music: both artists are lyrical, tempered, and incline toward narrative.

Haddington’s 1815 Holy Trinity Church stands on the site of a thirteenth-century Franciscan friary. It is set back on the deceptively narrow Church Street which terminates at the Nungate Bridge, as did the dangling lives of many criminals in bygone eras. This elegantly simply venue housed an imaginative centenary celebration programme entitled “Literary Britten”.

After spending a short time away on the Southern coast of France, it was welcoming to attend a concert drawn from both sides of the continent shortly after returning: a French composer, two English composers and a work of a Frenchman arranged by a contemporary English musician.

Over the centuries, the Three Choirs Festival has developed a commendable trait in presenting the very best in English choral music; in more recent years the Festival has been committed to resurrecting once popular works that have been considered worthy of reassessment and, following on from last year’s performance of George Dyson’s Canterbury Pilgrims, this year the lot fell to Samuel Coleridge-T

Miraculous as Jonathan Harvey’s music is, it seems reductive to call Wagner Dream an opera. Half the cast, after all, don’t even sing, but act: it’s a sincere meeting of music and theatre in a way that opera usually isn’t.

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.

La Messe en si mineur de Bach aux Violons du Roy fut une véritable expérience métaphysique, avec un chef investi, un orchestre et un chœur d'élite et des solistes de tout premier ordre.

Das ausgefallene Oratorium war beim Ensemble Pygmalion und Raphaël Pichon in esprithaften Händen und berührte mit Lust für das Drama.

Herreweghe tient son affaire, la lecture est claire d’architecture comme de propos. Et même si le dessin porte parfois quelques ratures, l’équilibre sculptural et la cambrure des attaques restent irrésistibles. On ne croyait pas pouvoir ressentir autant de punch, autant de fulgurance dans cette musique fortement hiératique.