Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Pastorale d'été (Summer pastorale), H31

Maria João Pires gives a soporific, lacklustre performance of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto, while the Festival Strings Lucerne transform Honegger’s Pastorale d'été into a riveting ambient moodscape and bring pristine clarity to the Pastoral Symphony. 

For the new season's curtain-raising programme, Seattle Symphony finds reassurance in milestones from its history led by Conductor Emeritus Ludovic Morlot.

In Boston, an inventive program of Ravel, Honegger and Milhaud explores the Parisian musical melting pot of the 1920s and 30s.

Featuring the clear-voiced and assured soprano Mary Bevan, Bliss’ Rout seemed less dated than others in this performance.

Fabien Gabel and the Orchestre Symphonique de Quebec present inventive and colorful musical pictures by Schmitt, El-Khoury, Honegger, Zappa and Richard Strauss.

Lapland Chamber Orchestra debuts at the Proms with a brilliant performance ranging from unusual classical pieces such as Sibelius’s intimate and tender Rakastava to disturbing contemporary pieces by Birtwistle and Davies. 

Oliver Knussen has taken the BBC Symphony Orchestra on some interesting journeys during his relationship with them, as both composer and conductor. Of all these journeys, Prom 19 surely ranks among the most fascinating. Under Knussen’s masterful conducting, the orchestra and Claire Booth gave us a scintillating if sometimes overwhelming exhibition of six intense early Twentieth Century works.