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Classical music & opera

  • Víkingur Ólafsson.

    Recording of the week
    Víkingur Ólafsson: Opus 109 album review – pianist’s concept album opens up transcendent vistas

    Olafsson’s account of Beethoven’s Op 109 is one of the most beautiful on record, the centrepiece of a recording that links the composer to Bach and Schubert
  • Avril Coleridge-Taylor sitting at a piano

    Feature
    Out of the shadows: why Avril Coleridge-Taylor deserves to be heard

  • Balls at Royal Festival Hall, London.

    Review
    Battle of the Sexes – tennis’s most famous match becomes kitschy, pacey opera

  • New York City Ballet in the world premiere of Rotunda, February 2020 – choreography by Justin Peck, music by Nico Muhly

    Moving beyond bar lines: composer Nico Muhly on dancers reimagining his music

  • 2025.11.19 - Shostakovich’s Last Symphony - Osmo Vänskä, Helena Juntunen - Cr Jonathan Ferro (23 of 28) (17)

    Review
    CBSO/Vänskä – weird brilliance and neurotic tics in a compelling programme

  • Three middle aged men in suits holding up a musical score inside a church

    News
    Two long-lost organ pieces by JS Bach performed for first time in 300 years

  • Mid Wales Opera’s staging of Trouble in Tahiti.

    Review
    Trouble in Tahiti – vibrant staging of Bernstein’s one-acter of marital discord

Live reviews

  • Jake Ingbar (Armindo) and Katie Bray (Rosmira) in Partenope at the London Coliseum.

    Partenope review – edgy and erotic Handel update

  • Pianist Seong-Jin Cho gives the world premiere of Donghoon Shin’s Piano Concerto with Maxime Pascal conducting the LSO.

    LSO/Pascal review – from an effervescent marimba to funeral gongs in compelling new music concert

  • Rattle with the BRSO at Barbican Hall, London.

    Bavarian Radio SO/Rattle review – consistently fine and fervent playing

  • Ailish Tynan (soprano), Kitty Whately (mezzo-soprano), Nicholas Phan (tenor), Ashley Riches (bass-baritone), Max Baillie (violin), and Anna Tilbrook (piano) perform during a day devoted to the composer Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979), at London's Wigmore Hall on 8 November 2025. RS51403 251108 TynanWhatelyPhanRichesBaillieTilbrook 21-22-47-21

    Rebecca Clarke review – composer of spirited chamber music and songs finally gets her due

Recordings

  1. Edward Gardner conducting the London Philharmonic Orchestra, 2024

    Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius album review – Gardner and the LPO’s reading is bold and dramatic

  2. Kirill Petrenko conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker, 2022

    Brahms: Symphony No 1, Tragic Overture album review – Petrenko and the Berliners give Brahms organic momentum

  3. Vincent Dumestre Press publicity portrait Credit: Juan Diego Castillo

    Le Poème Harmonique: Hail! Bright Cecilia album review – Purcell’s ode shines in luxurious French recording

  4. Katie Whately recording Rebecca Clarke: The Complete Songs.

    Rebecca Clarke: The Complete Songs album review – rich, radiant performances bring a forgotten voice to life

People

  • Jacqueline Varsey And Colin Lee in The Mikado @ Savoy Directed by Ian Judge ©Tristram Kenton 9/00 (3 Raveley Street London NW5 2HX) (020 7) 267 5550 Mob 0973 617 355)

    Ian Judge obituary

  • Welsh National Opera’s Sarah Crabtree (left) and Adele Thomas

    Welsh National Opera
    ‘We have permission to be brave’: the women taking charge of crisis-hit WNO

  • Louise Alder as the Countess, with Huw Montague Rendall as the Count, in in Le Nozze Di Figaro at Glyndebourne.

    Interview
    ‘The cultural landscape is decimated’: Louise Alder on stage fright, arts funding and the Last Night of the Proms

  • Concert in Oslo - Pekka Kuusisto with Katarina Barruk, press image

    ‘It’s a symbol of hope and defiance for Ume Sámi and its speakers’: singer Katarina Barruk on her Proms debut

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    Feature
    ‘I’m a composer. Am I staring extinction in the face?’: classical music and AI

  2. Cellist Mstislav Rostropovich plays in front of the Berlin Wall as crowds celebrate its fall in November 1989.

    Art and politics are not the same thing – but the Anna Netrebko case shows what happens when they collide

    Martin Kettle
  3. Paul McCartney with Brian Epstein at Abbey Road Studios.

    ‘The King Lear in I Am the Walrus? That came from John Cage’: Paul McCartney on the Beatles’ debt to great avant-garde composers

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