Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Symphony no. 9 in D minor "Choral", Op.125

The summer festival closes with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra playing Tippett and Beethoven. 

Conductor Christoph Eschenbach brings style and sophistication to a freewheeling finale to this year's festival, ending with Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

Much delayed by the pandemic, Giordano Bellincampi's Beethoven symphony cycle with the Auckland PO finally reaches its conclusion with a triumphant closing concert. 

Led by guest conductor David Danzmayr, the Seattle Symphony's performance of Beethoven's Ninth resumes an interrupted tradition, with a Buddhist prayer set to music by Lili Boulanger as the touching preface.

Profound questions as the Tanglewood season closes with the traditional appearance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. 

The Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and Rafael Payare offer up a thrilling Beethoven 9 to close the season.

DSO music director Jader Bignamini leads his ensemble in the glory of Beethoven’s Ninth, prefaced by a recent work written as a companion piece to the symphony.

Domingo Hindoyan has a bright future in Liverpool, as he conducts his new orchestra in Beethoven's Ninth.

The elegance of the First Symphony served as a perfect curtain raiser for the mammoth, exultant Ninth.

An all-day Beethoven experience European style with both highs and lows: much diversity revealed and exploited but of variable quality.

Seven months ago, when Tokyo’s musical scene was brought to a standstill by the Covid-19 pandemic, it was hard to envisage any orchestra performing Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony by December, an important year-end custom in Japan.

The traditional end of year performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony took on extra significance in this, his 250th anniversary year. 

“Go big or go home” could easily have been the motto of this summer’s festival. Muti didn’t just go big. He went huge. 

Nine symphonies, five orchestras, two days: an immersive weekend as part of the Barbican's Beethoven 250 coverage featuring some of the UK's finest orchestras. 

Sultry Berg and and a lithe, forceful Beethoven Nine herald an exciting new reign in Berlin.

What to put with Beethoven's greatest statement on the universality of the human spirit? The BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Sakari Oramo, Neil Ferris and Andreas Haefliger make a case for renewal.

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, under Music Director Manfred Honeck, the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh and soloists gave a brilliant performance of Beethoven's monumental Ninth Symphony. 

The culmination of Thomas Ades' Beethoven cycle with the Britten Sinfonia channels Beethoven's atavistic energies. 

Bernard Haitink celebrated an early 90th birthday conducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in a searching, joyous account of Beethoven's “Choral” Symphony.

Donald Runnicles conducts the World Orchestra for Peace and BBC Proms Youth Choir at The Proms

Lars Vogt and Royal Northern Sinfonia deliver Beethoven's Symphony no. 9 with swaggering self-confidence, and heroic chorus singing.

It is unlikely that anyone went home from this soul-inspiring performance without that famous "Ode" ringing in his or her head.

A line-up of well-matched vocal soloists and a chorus in top form, along with passionate conducting by Franz Welser-Möst made for a memorable closing concert of this important milestone season.

Ryan Wigglesworth conducts a Huw Watkins première and a grand-scale account of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony

This wasn’t just any concert. The Zurich Tonhalle’s new season was opening in a brand new hall in the trendy Züri-West quarter of the city.

An underwhelming performance that fell prey to poor interpretive judgements. 

Concluding its "Belief and Beyond Belief" series, the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Yazushi Ono also completes its 2016-2017 concert season. 

Michael Sanderling conducts the Dresden Philharmonic in Beethoven in Cardiff.

Beethoven’s call to joy and brotherhood left much to be desired if not for a fantastic chorus in the final movement. 

To open the new year, Seattle Symphony music director Ludovic Morlot chose a standard work, Beethoven’s Ninth, prefaced with an unusual one by French composer Olivier Messaien. 

Vienna Philharmonic takes the audience back in time to Mozart's era and to the orchestra's homeland.

Democracy and collectivism were hard at work as Jurowski’s decidedly undictatorial style fostered a strong on-stage community amongst the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir, who ultimately conjured Elysium itself.

As part of their blockbuster festival programme Simon Rattle and his brawny Berliners offered Beethoven’s Ninth in a monumental performance. 

If you are going to hear any performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in the next decade, it should be from Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker. 

Gustavo Dudamel conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra in an "Immortal Beethoven" performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

The Philharmonia Orchestra celebrated its 70th birthday with a gala comprising Schumann’s Piano Concerto and Beethoven’s Choral Symphony, conducted by the orchestra's Honorary Conductor for Life, Christoph von Dohnányi

Traditionally at the Proms, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is reserved for the penultimate prom slot in September, but this year, they have made an exception and given it to the CBSO and Andris Nelsons.

Bernard Haitink and the LSO in fine form for an all-Beethoven programme, but the 'Glorious Ninth' fails to impress.

The Warsaw Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra offered a program of Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Their performance at Cadogan Hall had outstanding moments but overall felt unremarkable.

Pianist Vadym Kholodenko gives a thrilling performance of Beethoven's Fourth, and the RTVE orchestra and chorus impress in the Ninth Symphony.

Vasily Petrenko conducts the RLPO in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Mendelssohn's Die erste Walpurgisnacht in Liverpool's Philharmonic Hall.

With an inspired showing in Prague, the Berlin Philharmonic reprises one of the most significant moments in the orchestra's history.

Juanjo Mena conducts stirring accounts of Beethoven's Fourth and Ninth symphonies at Manchester's Bridgewater Hall with the CBSO Chorus.

Not everything worked in Gilbert's Beethoven Nine, but the stunning finale redeemed all.

Tony Pappano’s recipe for a concert programme: take a 20th century Italian one act opera, follow it with a romantic symphony chopped in half, then throw in a related German aria; play without a break. It may sound like a train wreck in the making, but the result was a triumph.

There are many ways to experience a piece of music. Hearing the Cleveland Institute of Music Orchestra perform Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with a mammoth chorus of amateur singers drawn from the community offered a reminder that a masterwork need not be perfectly rendered to be aesthetically satisfying.

A thoughtful pairing of Schoenberg's Friede auf Erden and Beethoven's Ninth fails to catch fire.

The opening concert of the Wiener Konzerthaus in 1913 featured a performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with a celebratory prelude written by Richard Strauss. To mark its 100 year birthday, this Sunday morning the Vienna Philharmonic, led by the eminently engaging Gustavo Dudamel, performed Beethoven’s Ninth as well, but this time with a “Prolog” written by living composer Aribert Reimann.

In the 15,606 concerts given by the New York Philharmonic and its predecessors before this, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony had received nearly 200 renditions.