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Zubin Mehta, Siobhan Stagg and the players of the AWO were on top of their game in works by Webern, Debussy and Brahms, where the connections were as potent as the contrasts.

True to himself, Sir Simon Rattle and the LSO offered a mouth-watering programme of contrasts. The first half pointing clearly to the modern world worked better than the backward glance at a great Romantic symphony.

Zubin Mehta returns to Disney Hall, demonstrating the multifaceted implications of Wagner and his “music of tomorrow”.

In the last program at home before an international tour, Franz Welser-Möst led The Cleveland Orchestra in an imposing performance of Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben, prefaced by works of Schubert and Webern.

The CBSO conducted by Nicholas Collon grapple with the collision of love and death in works by Mahler, Webern and Brahms

Barbara Hannigan joined the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle for performances of Berg’s Three Fragments from Wozzeck and Ligeti’s Mysteries of the Macabre. 

Nikki Chooi makes something less than a fantasy out of Bruch but the Auckland Philharmonia shine in Schumann.

It wasn’t only Mitsuko Uchida’s hands that were agile. Her arrival on stage was accompanied by the deepest bow imaginable, bending from the waist until she resembled a tuning fork. Such Japanese formality was paired with a warm, glowing smile and a real connection with players and audience alike.

The works of Anton Webern – famously described by Stravinksy as “dazzling diamonds” – have been “unwrapped” as part of The Rest is Noise festival this month. This was a timely project, as the output of this Second Viennese School composer has often been misrepresented due to its considerable (and problematic) impact on 20th- and 21st-century music.

Simon Rattle returned to Birmingham's Symphony Hall, a construction of his own initiation and the home of his successes with the CBSO, to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in a concert as part of the hall's 21st birthday celebrations.

For its concert on Sunday afternoon, the Philadelphia Orchestra under Simon Rattle performed symphonic works which, the programme notes claimed, “invite us to think about the possibilities of hidden musical meaning”.Over the years, speculation has been rife on the famous F-A-F motif of the opening chords on woodwinds in the first movement of Brahms’ Symphony no.

The Philadelphia Orchestra may be in the news more often for its financial difficulties than for its music-making, but even a fleeting listen to one of their concerts demonstrates that the ensemble remains one of America’s gems.

It isn’t often that the Musikverein programmes Webern, the most underperformed of Vienna’s major musical sons, alongside a Liebestod from Bayreuth’s reigning Isolde, but then this was no ordinary Musikverein concert.

Wie passt denn das von Fabio Luisi gewählte Programm von Weberns Sechs Stücken für großes Orchester und Mahlers Neunter zusammen? Überraschend gut!

Vor der US- und Kanada-Tour ergreifen die Berliner Philharmoniker unter ihrem Chefdirigenten mit einem fein durchdachten, atemberaubend gespielten Programm.