Sofia’s Choice: Gubaidulina at 80 at the Royal Academy of Music

Royal Academy of Music Chamber Ensemble Trevor Pinnock conductor Runette Botha sopranoHaydn (arr. Salomon) Symphony Quintetto (after Symphony No. 101 The Clock) for flute, string quartet and piano (ed. Christopher Hogwood)Mahler (arr. Stein) Symphony No. 4 in GThis was quite simply a delightful concert. The juxtaposition of these two pared-down symphonies was a brilliant idea superbly executed.

The young Spanish violinist proves an ardent advocate for a work originally dismissed as a “Hollywood Concerto” as the BBC Symphony Orchestra closes its Barbican season.

Come away fellow sailors, your anchors be weighing! All board the Cutty Sark for a semi-staging of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas with the Monteverdi Choir and English Baroque Soloists.

Songs and symphonies from Sir Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra, concluding with a vision of “heavenly life” from Gustav Mahler. 

Late Brahms, early Schoenberg: under Lahav Shani and the Rotterdam Philharmonic draw tenderness from two monumental scores. 

Fragments by Brahms, Schoenberg and Schubert orbit Beethoven's Waldstein and Schumann's Carnaval in another masterful recital from Sir Stephen Hough.