Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Seven Early Songs (Sieben frühe Lieder)

Barbara Hannigan joined pianist Reinbert de Leeuw for a Second Viennese School recital at the Park Avenue Armory.

As part of the Konzerthaus’ Mittagsmusik (Midday Music) series, young soprano Anna Lucia Richter teamed up this week with one of the greatest living song accompanists, Gerold Huber, to present an extraordinarily varied matinée of songs in the Schubertsaal.

Soprano Lisa Larsson and pianist Roland Pöntinen dispelled the midwinter gloom with a heavy dose of Scandinavian Romanticism and the Dutch première of Rolf Martinsson's Songs on Poems by Emily Dickinson.

Jennifer Larmore’s eclectic song recital themed around love and longing was uneven, but the heartfelt American songs left one craving for more.

For this diamond jubilee as a conductor, Bernard Haitink conducted the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic in a programme of Wagner, Berg and Mahler. 

The BBC Symphony Orchestra and Christine Brewer close Wagner bicentenary celebrations at the Barbican by showing his influence on Strauss, Webern and Berg on December 20th.

Elina Garanča can always be counted on for a coolly polished performance. Her silvery mezzo is beautiful, even throughout her range, and impeccably on pitch. She is musically tasteful, and her sound has grown in recent years. But something often seems to be missing. While she’s too accomplished to call bland, her performances rarely show evidence of a beating heart.

Billed as “The soundtrack of the 20th century”, The Rest is Noise season of 2013 has now commenced at the Southbank Centre. Concert programmes scheduled throughout January have focused on the Second Viennese School and its infamous break with western tonality.

Can two composers have so much, yet so little in common? Or be such accommodating, yet such uncomfortable bedfellows? The SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg with their principal conductor François-Xavier Roth addressed these questions in exhilarating style, in a “turn-of-the-century time capsule” which thrilled and enchanted upon its opening.

L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, aux aguets, provoque l’émotion… Sous la direction attentive et exigeante de Sir Mark Elder, la phalange genevoise offre une palette énorme de nuances sans jamais arriver au point de rupture. Quand l’intelligence est au service de la musicalité, la musique en sort toujours gagnante !