En direct, Vidéo: Rechercher des critiques de musique classique, opéra et ballet | Britten Sinfonia

A game of three halves from the Britten Sinfonia, with a late appearance by three star soloists.

A new collaboration from Gerhard Richter and Steve Reich tantalises and enthralls in London.

Despite the excellent playing of the Britten Sinfonia, Anna Morrissey’s flawed production disappoints. 

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

Thomas Adès and the Britten Sinfonia now enter the final phase of their three year Beethoven and Barry cycle with rewarding interpretations of Beethoven's Seventh and Eighth, separated by a new Viola Concerto from Barry.

Hugo Wolf once said “Brahms cannot exult”. He should have heard this.

A conductorless performance of Handel's masterpiece lights up the Barbican.

Mit Steven Isserlis und Nicolas Hodges zeigt die Britten Sinfonia in Amsterdam ein modernes und leichtfüßiges Konzertprogramm.

Thomas Adès continued his Beethoven cycle with the Britten Sinfonia in a superb performance of Beethoven's Sixth paired with Barry’s marmite piece The Conquest of Ireland.

The latest concert in the Britten Sinfonia’s ongoing Beethoven symphony cycle also featured the London première of Gerald Barry’s combative Piano Concerto.

Mark-Anthony Turnage's take on Neil Gaiman's classic young adult novella is well sung and well staged, without quite reaching peak intensity.

A superb start to the Britten Sinfonia's Brahms cycle.

The first live performance of Philip Glass' Passages was a spellbinding fusion of modernity and tradition, an exquisite meeting of minds, music styles and instrumentation.

Thomas Adès conducts the Britten Sinfonia in Beethoven and Gerald Barry.

Adès brought a freshness and originality to Beethoven's earliest symphonies, and a sharp portrait of the composer was given courtesy of Gerald Barry.

Lewis Carroll's Alice: so crazy that all Gerald Barry can do is make it crazier.

The first UK production of Karl Amadeus Hartmann’s 1930s anti-war opera Simplicius Simplicissimus is a musical and dramatic triumph, and as pertinent as ever

From the ultimate process piece, to a recent video-opera, this central concert of the Barbican's 'Steve Reich at 80' weekend reminded us what the fuss has been all about.

Evocative new works by Adès and Coll were performed thrillingly and provocatively by the Britten Sinfonia as they brought fizz and clarity to Beethoven's eighth and Prokofiev's "Classical" Symphony.

Hans Zender's composed interpretation of Schubert's great song-cycle Winterreise, sung by Ian Bostridge, with visuals by Netia Jones, reveals the stark beauty, timelessness and philosophical qualities of Schubert’s music and Mueller’s poetry.

Gerald Barry’s deliciously anarchic operatic setting of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest returns to the London stage.

Britten Sinfonia and Voices directed by Eamonn Dougan courageously plumb the depths of humanity’s despair in music ancient and modern

The first of two concerts given by the Britten Sinfonia at the Barbican Hall, with Barbara Hannigan as both singer and conductor.

Works by Locatelli, Hans Abrahamsen and Tom Coult accompanied Dmitry Sitkovetsky's arrangement of Bach's Goldberg Variations. 

In a diverse programme consisting of Haydn and Pärt, Stephen Layton impressed with his choir Polyphony, while the Britten Sinfonia performed a fine rendition of Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony. 

A clever programme of mid-20th century American music by Carter, Copland and contemporaries, watered down with a light sprinkling of Arlen and Gershwin.

John Woolrich is a publically undervalued contributor to British musical life. This evening’s concert attempted to celebrate as many of the man’s musical guises as possible.

Lincoln Center' White Light Festival presents Benjamin Britten's Curlew River with an excellent ensemble of singers and musicians. 

The Britten Sinfonia's tribute to Mozart fell somewhat flat, with only hauntingly beautiful Kurtág able to somewhat redeem passionless performances of Adams and Tavener.

There was an inundation of the sound of John Tavener's Flood of Beauty at the Barbican on Sunday, with the Britten Sinfonia conducted by Martyn Brabbins.

Was Rufus Wainwright made for the Proms? Quite possibly: he ticks all the boxes needed for the ideal late-night set. He’s a pop artist, yes, but a pop artist whose love of classical music. 

Alison Bell joins Britten Sinfonia to wow at Wigmore Hall in the fourth of the orchestra’s lunchtime chamber series, including Schoenberg's String Quartet no. 2.

Britten Sinfonia provide a lunchtime chamber music treat at Wigmore Hall, with music by Sally Beamish, Witold Lutosławski, Mozart and Fauré.

Violinist Pekka Kuusisto and Britten Sinfonia succeeded in creating a dynamic and captivating programme at Milton Court, with a series of works conceived as a whole and leading up to Britten's Serenade.

Barbican Britten: Phaedra is just one of the events in the venue’s two-week celebration of the composer’s centenary. The programme presents four pieces choreographed by Richard Alston to Benjamin Britten’s music. Alston’s choreography is well suited to Britten’s music: both artists are lyrical, tempered, and incline toward narrative.

In a brief mid-concert interview for BBC Radio 3, conductor Sian Edwards was asked why Britten and his contemporaries wrote so much music for small string orchestra, and her answer illuminated the choice of programming for this Proms Saturday Matinee performance.

Interviewed at the Barbican Centre last year, Stephen Fry described Gerald Barry’s score for The Importance of Being Earnest (2010) rather unfavourably as “taking a machete to a soufflé”. However, this zany opera based on Oscar Wilde’s classic play of 1895 has already emerged victorious from concert premières in Los Angeles and London.

The centenary of Britten’s birth has seen a surge in performances of his music both in the concert hall and on the stages of many a noted opera house. Sensationalised biographies, radio and television programmes, and a number of Britten-centred festivals have helped to pique further interest in a composer whose music tends to attract a love-hate relationship with its listeners.

Alina Ibragimova barely glanced up from her score during her Bach concerto with Britten Sinfonia last night, and the result was some of the most intense, beautiful music-making I can recall hearing.

22 November 2012 would have been Benjamin Britten’s 99th birthday. Wigmore Hall marked the occasion with the first concert in a series of nine events in November and December. However, rather than focusing exclusively on Britten’s music, it built towards the climax that saw Britten’s angst-ridden late masterpiece Phaedra searingly performed.

While there’s no reason that a children’s opera should be simple or easy, there’s no real need for it to be difficult either. So I was a little confused going into the Barbican’s performance of Oliver Knussen’s brilliant brace of Maurice Sendak adaptations this Saturday, which was surrounded, despite the works’ subject matter, with a slightly unbecoming aura of seriousness.

Pleasantly enough, Britten Sinfonia went down a thoroughly unconventional route in celebrating their 20th birthday at the Barbican on Saturday, with a brilliantly varied range of new pieces mixing with chamber orchestra classics.

Friday's Late Night Prom was a bold venture into crossover. On the left and centre of the stage was a fully loaded symphony orchestra (the Britten Sinfonia); on the right, a jazz big band (the Guy Barker Jazz Orchestra); in front of them, virtuoso jazz guitarist Martin Taylor and his Spirit of Django ensemble; on the podium, conducting the whole lot, was Barker himself.

To call last night’s Nico Muhly extravaganza at the Barbican a concert of two halves would not go far enough. It was more like two concerts, with a surprisingly short gap between them. The first was made up of three new classical works played by the Britten Sinfonia, and the second was a set of arty folk numbers and other chamber miniatures by Muhly and others.

Before attending Sir Mark Elder and the Britten Sinfonia’s performance of L’enfance du Christ, I could have claimed to be almost entirely ignorant of Berlioz’s music. The only exception – apart from an innocuous bucolic passage from Harold in Italy I ‘studied’ at A-level – was ‘The Shepherd’s Farewell’, which makes my Christmas chocolate box list annually.

Themes of spirituality and religion pervaded the fourth and final chamber music prom of this BBC Proms season.

It's not often in classical music that the performers themselves are the main focus of our attention; more often than not they are at the service of the composer. But this evening was an exception to the rule, showcasing the multi-talented Joanna MacGregor and Arve Henriksen.