Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Symphony no. 13 in B flat minor, "Babi Yar", Op.113

Before a searing performance of Shostakovich's Thirteenth from Ryan Bancroft and his Welsh forces, Benjamin Grosvenor delivers a terrific performance of Ravel's Piano Concerto in G major. 

A perennially unsettling pair of complementary post-war masterpieces, conducted by Andrey Boreyko, and a moving return to London for Gidon Kremer. 

Ryan Bancroft and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales give an extraordinary, terrifying account of Shostakovich’s Thirteenth Symphony, preceded by a Classical-Romantic tussle in Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto. 

The Estonian National Male Choir make a strong impression, while Jennifer Pike excels in a cornerstone of her repertoire. 

Britten’s Violin Concerto could easily qualify as a Mount Everest for violinists, but Augustin Hadelich scaled it with deceptive ease.

Ukrainian bass Ukrainian Vitalij Kowaljow brings drama and authority to Shostakovich's Babi Yar, while Simon Trpčeski offers a classical Emperor. 

Yannick Nézet-Séguin’s return to the London Philharmonic, of which he is the Guest Principal Conductor, was as usual greeted with a full and enthusiastic concert hall. His strengths in the French repertoire and choral music made him the perfect conductor for an evening of music by Dutilleux and Shostakovich, whose Tout un monde lointain and Symphony no.

Even in a festival anchored around a handful of 20th-century composers touched by the presence of war – Benjamin Britten, Dmitri Shostakovich, Béla Bartók, Witold Lutosławski – the program on Thursday night with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and their chief conductor, Marek Janowski, was especially haunted by the memory of atrocity. It was a night of tough music with little reprieve.

It can't be often that a poet declares that the selection and setting of his words to music has turned them into better poetry.

As a big Shostakovich fan, I was very excited when I found out that his 13th Symphony ('Babi Yar') would be performed this season. It's a work that does not appear that often in concert halls, probably because it not only requires a large orchestra, but also a more-than-adept bass soloist and male chorus.

Avec son directeur musical Joshua Weilerstein, la formation lilloise a livré un programme poignant qui associait Un survivant de Varsovie de Schönberg et la Symphonie n° 13 « Babi Yar » de Chostakovitch.

Zu Beginn seiner letzten Spielzeit als Chefdirigent gab Teodor Currentzis mit Schostakowitschs 13. Symphonie „Babi Jar” ein klares Statement ab: gegen Krieg, Gewalt und Unterdrückung und für das Mitempfinden mit den Opfern.

Sous la direction de Marko Letonja, l'Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, la basse Pavlo Hunka et le Chœur National d’hommes d’Estonie ont offert une interprétation bouleversante de la Symphonie n° 13 « Babi Yar » de Chostakovitch.

Die Münchner Philharmoniker boten unter Michael Sanderling ein packendes Programm mit Beethoven und Schostakowitsch. Die Symphonie Nr. 13 "Babij Jar" konnte dabei den nachhaltigsten Eindruck hinterlassen.