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The Best Bits
28th August 2026
Hello friends,
Welcome to our newsletter where our major streams of the week include a chance to watch Lohengrin from this year's Baden-Baden Easter Festival. We've also Barrie Kosky's staging of Rossini's Il viaggio a Reims from Salzburg, created as a 60th birthday present to Cecilia Bartoli who at one point leaps out of a cake!
Inspired by the Sibelius Festival currently taking place in Lahti (streams below), we take a dip into our video library for this week's Three of the Best.
Mark, Elisabeth and Jo
SPONSORED
Beethoven and beyond: Migros Culture Percentage Classics 2026–27
Switzerland’s premier concert series juxtaposes several notable Beethoven performances (it's the 200th anniversary of his death) with a variety of other music from around the world. From Geneva to Zurich, Lucerne and beyond, discover an enticing season.
The Bachtrack Insiders
Personal picks from our site
Mark Pullinger Editor
Haydn's Farewell
Both Elisabeth and Jo are on their holidays this week, so I'm the last member of the newsletter team standing, feeling a bit abandoned, just like the final movement of Haydn's Farewell Symphony where, one by one, the players leave the stage. The symphony was composed as a not-so-subtle protest to Haydn's employer, Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, that he had kept his court at his remote summer palace longer than planned. (Fear not: by the time you read this, I shall also be out of the country!!)
Elisabeth Schwarz Editor ✈️
Jo Johnson Head of Marketing 🏝️
What's hot? 🔥
Rudolf Buchbinder on Grafenegg
Loads of you have been reading Chanda VanderHart's interview with the wonderfully honest pianist Rudolf Buchbinder, ahead of his final summer as artistic director of the Grafenegg Festival. "The politicians support it and they don’t interfere. That, believe me, is a dream – it’s extraordinarily rare."
Out and about
Our tips on what to see live in the UK this week
Oslo Philharmonic at the BBC Proms
Royal Albert Hall, London
29th August
Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla and the Oslo Philharmonic team up with Patricia Kopatchinskaja for Stravinsky’s Bach-inspired Violin Concerto. The concert opens with Norwegian composer Øyvind Torvund’s symphonic poem for orchestra and electronics.
Berliner Philharmoniker
Usher Hall, Edinburgh
30th August
The Edinburgh International Festival is brought to a close by the Berlin Phil at the end of their first visit to the festival in 20 years. Kirill Petrenko conducts Scriabin, Augustin Hadelich is the soloist in Beethoven.
Giulio Cesare in Egitto
Arcola Theatre, London
2nd-5th September
New Trinity Baroque presents one of Handel's greatest works – in a newly conceived intimate staging – in the close-up, theatrically charged atmosphere of the Grimeborn Opera Festival.
Gentleman Jack
Alhambra, Bradford
3rd-5th September
Northern Ballet brings the extraordinary story of Anne Lister – better known as Gentleman Jack – to the stage, choreographed by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa with music by Peter Salem.
Live to your living room
The best streamed content to watch this week
Lohengrin
Festspielhaus Baden-Baden
Johannes Erath's new production for the Easter Festival, conducted by Joana Mallwitz, is now available to stream. Piotr Beczała sings the knight who arrives by swan and won't be taking any personal questions...
Available now
Hamburg
Manfred Honeck opens the Elphi season with the Pittsburgh Symphony and Alexandre Kantorow
Live 1st September
Salzburg
Cecilia Bartoli marks her 60th birthday by starring in Il viaggio a Reims, set as a hotel farce by Barrie Kosky
Available now
Lahti
Hannu Lintu conducts the Sinfonia Lahti at this year's Sibelius Festival which is now not exclusively Sibelius
Available now
Three of the best...
Sibelius streams in our Bachtrack video library
Herbert Blomstedt conducts the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester in the Second Symphony
Karina Canellakis conducts the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic in En Saga and the Third Symphony
Julia Fischer performs the Violin Concerto with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and Alain Altinoglu
Riddle Me This...
Critics' Corner
What our reviewers watched
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Photography credits:
Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra © Philharmonia Orchestra | Marc Gascoigne
Rudolf Buchbinder © Marco Borggreve
Lohengrin © Martin Sigmund, Manfred Honeck © Todd Rosenberg, Il viaggio a Reims © SF | Monika Rittershaus
Sibelius © Public domain
Elza van den Heever, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Met Orchestra © BBC | Chris Christodoulou, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s Ihsane at the Edinburgh International Festival © Jess Shurte, Catherine Carby (Hänsel und Gretel) © Andrew Beveridge
Johann Sebastian Bach © Public domain
