En direct, Vidéo: Rechercher des critiques de musique classique, opéra et ballet | Yan Pascal Tortelier

A bold programme from an orchestra with a bold sound as the ISO trails in the wake of Storm Ciara on its debut UK tour. 

Korngold's Violin Concerto from Simone Lamsma is delivered with extraordinary deftness and depth, while Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances thrill under Yan Pascal Tortelier and the Pittsburgh Symphony.

Breezy Ravel from Steven Osborne and a clear warning about the dangers of drug-taking from the BBCSSO at Sage Gateshead.

The Iceland Symphony Orchestra's tour to the acoustically excellent Göteborgs konserthus in Sweden for a concert of Sibelius, Strauss and Thorvaldsdóttir was an obvious success, demonstrating an orchestral sound that deserves to be heard abroad more often. 

With Penderecki conducting his own work, this concert demonstrated the possibilities of orchestral colour filtered through a post-Romantic lens, but was confronted with issues of balance and refinement.

If every workplace could undergo a team-building exercise like Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra, the world would be a happier place. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra’s performance under Yan Pascal Tortelier was unbelievably energetic.

While several of the world’s orchestras are struggling to pay their players, never mind expand, Stavanger has just built a new £100 million concert hall, its interior a triumph of acoustic engineering and its public side with airy atriums and bars looking across attractive bays. This celebratory concert to mark the Konserthus’ opening was heavily packed and warmly received.

The evening of dreams began an hour before the concert, with Entre-Temps for oboe and string quartet by the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu, an admirer of Debussy and a similarly ‘cinematic’ composer, with an ability to play with sound-colours which is alluring for film directors in search of atmospheres.

Several years ago I attended a glorious Baltimore Symphony Orchestra concert under the baton of a celebrity conductor. A less experienced listener at the time, I was shocked to watch him leading the orchestra in a Rossini overture with his arms folded behind his back.

Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra began what promised to be an excellent programme with a simple Romantic work from Richard Strauss, Traumerei am Kamin (“Dreaming by the Fireside”).