One man and his cello: Pieter Wispelwey performs Britten’s Cello Suites

Kazuki Yamada combines Japanese deference with full control of his players to lead he CBSO to fine performances of Beethoven and Sibelius, with a relatively laid back performance of the Elgar Cello concerto.

At one point in Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, the narrator is listening to a sonata for piano and violin by the fictional Vinteuil, when “at a certain moment, without being able to distinguish any clear outline, or to give a name to what was pleasing him, suddenly enraptured, he tried to grasp the phrase or harmony – he did not know which – that had just been played and that had opened and expa

The noted Beethoven pianist Artur Schnabel was famously interested only in music that he felt was “better than it can be performed”. This idea of works which transcend any individual performance seems particularly true when it comes to Beethoven’s late string quartets, enigmatic masterpieces which continue to pose challenges to interpreters nearly two centuries after they were written.

In his first New York appearance since the termination of his contract as BSO Music Director, Nelsons courts public sympathy and makes some thrilling music.

The sparkle of Max Bruch's Fecond Violin Concerto and the drama of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony overcome the gloom of Anna Thorvaldsdottir’s dark forebodings.