A sucker punch: LCO surveys Glass' complete exploration of Bowie's Berlin Trilogy

Excellent performances of Scelsi's Uaxuctum and John Luther Adams' prescient Become Ocean were by accompanied by an impressive, but ultimately distracting audiovisual display.

The LCO and Actress present tantalizing textures, while new works of placid emotion envelop the senses.

Contemporary classical music is happening in all manner of unexpected venues in London at the moment, from Peckham car parks to pubs. But it isn't just getting edgier – it's also getting more respectable, if last night's suave affair in the Royal Albert Hall's Elgar Room is anything to go by.

There's classical music, and there's pop. You can throw as many violins into the bridge section as you like, and you can amplify the orchestra all you want as well. It's unfortunate, but a certain divide looks set to stay.

Reading Gérard Grisey’s programme notes on his masterpiece Vortex Temporum is not the most agreeable experience. The reader is informed that the work is structured around ‘three basic forms’: ‘the original event – a sinusoidal wave – and two continuous events, an attack with or without resonance as well as a sound held with or without crescendo’.

 If music is ever heard in a post-apocalyptic world, surely this is how it will sound.