Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Piano Concerto no. 2 in G major, Sz 95

Ludovic Morlot and Seattle Symphony wrap up their two-year Beethoven cycle with a new perspective on the Fifth, by way of Bohuslav Martinů and a thrilling Bartók Second Piano Concerto featuring Bertrand Chamayou.

Jeremy Denk gave an athletic performance of Bartók's formidable second piano concerto, complemented by a Dvořák overture and two major works of Janáček.

As Valery Gergiev's tenure comes to an end, the LSO presented a concert of the repertoire he is most a home in, to thrilling results. 

After an exhausting multiple rehearsal week the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra kicked off its current season with a rousing reading of Beethoven’s Fidelio Overture.

Another low-energy second half let down a strong first in the San Francisans' second appearance at the Proms under Michael Tilson Thomas.

Béla Bartók was a composer of extremes. An avid collector of Hungarian folk songs, he published arrangements of these simple tunes alongside his own more ascetic music. The detailed programme notes for the Philharmonia’s Bartók series entitled ‘Infernal Dance’ divide his music into three categories: the banned, the rarely played and the fully approved.

The programme read a little like a musical version of Kim's Game: not one but two full-scale symphonies, the same number of prefatory pieces, and then a piano concerto to boot: a test for the audience as well as the orchestra. The principal connexion between the works – apart from their contemporaneity – was the celebrated conductor, Serge Koussevitsky.