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Classical music & opera

  • Breathtaking … Yunchan Lim.

    Album of the week
    Yunchan Lim: Chopin: Études Op 10 & Op 25 – prodigiously gifted young pianist confirms he’s something special

  • OA Tales of Hoffman<br>Tales of Hoffman; Opera Australia; Dress Rehearsal; July 2023

    News
    Royal Ballet and Opera announces ambitious new season – and name change

    2024-25 programme includes premieres of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s opera Festen and Wayne McGregor’s Margaret Atwood ballet MaddAddam
  • Barenboim has not conducted in the UK since 2019.

    News
    BBC unveils 2024 Proms lineup: Daniel Barenboim, Daleks and disco

  • ‘Forget about stage and audience, to mix and experience the absurdity, with humour and sarcasm’ … Kopitchanskaja performs with the LSO in 2023.

    ‘I’m not humble. I expect miracles’
    why violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja wants to blow you out of your seat

  • Andrew Davies faces to the left of the picture while smiling

    News
    Sir Andrew Davis, ex-chief conductor of BBC Symphony Orchestra, dies aged 80

  • ‘He made over 600 recordings in five decades’ … Sir Neville Marriner conducts the Academy of St Martin in the Fields in Stravinsky's Pulcinella Suite at Carnegie Hall in February 2007.

    Amadeus, Elgar, a bogus gold disc and Goldie Hawn
    Neville Marriner’s best recordings

  • Composer Cassandra Miller for g2 Arts. Photo by Linda Nylind. 04/04/2024.

    Deep listening
    The haunting sonic world of Cassandra Miller

Live reviews

  • ‘Phrases float into the air’ … Leonidas Kavakos at the Barbican.Photo by Mark Allan

    Leonidas Kavakos review – the music dances irresistibly in ego-free solo Bach

  • Llŷr Williams.

    Llŷr Williams review – Welsh pianist of an infinite range of colours

  • Kazuki Yamada (centre) takes applause from an unseen audience with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.

    CBSO/Yamada review – Anna Clyne’s Atlas is a brilliantly coloured musical scrapbook

  • The Aurora Orchestra with Robyn Stapleton and Sam Amidon.

    Stapleton/Amidon/Aurora Orchestra/Muhly review – grisly murder ballads beautifully played

Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

Album reviews

  • Havergal Brian in 1972.

    Brian: The Cenci album review – composer’s lack of flair for music drama all too evident

  • Golda Schultz pointing to a small bust of Mozart, as if saying to him that he drives her crazy

    Classical home listening: Golda Schultz’s Mozart, You Drive Me Crazy!; Kozłowski’s Requiem and more

  • Members of Los Angeles Master Chorale

    Adams: Girls of the Golden West album review – California gold rush opera has a definitive recording

  • Paul McCreesh, pictured conducting during a recording session for Elgar: Dream of Gerontius

    Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius album review – Spence soars in otherwise passion-light period instrument recording

Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

People

  • Fanny: The Other Mendelssohn

    ‘Music for you must only be an ornament’
    How Fanny Mendelssohn’s voice was stifled, then saved

  • Martyn Brabbins rehearsing with English National Opera Orchestra at the Henry Wood Hall in London.

    News
    ENO’s music director resigns over proposed cuts to musical staff positions

  • Joana Mallwitz

    Conducting
    Joana Mallwitz is the first woman to lead a Berlin orchestra. And, no, she hasn’t seen Tár

  • Christian Thielemann

    News
    Christian Thielemann picks up baton as director of Berlin State Opera from old rival

Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

You may have missed

  • Trumpet soloist Alison Balsom performed with the L.A. Philharmonic, conducted by Bramwell Tovey, on his "Songs of the Paradise Saloon," at Walt Disney Concert Hall, Nov. 10, 2013. (Photo by Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

    Alison Balsom
    ‘This is the most important piece written for the trumpet in 200 years’

  • WNO rehearsals for Death in Venice

    ‘We’re all agog’:
    Behind the scenes at Welsh National Opera’s Death in Venice – a photo essay

  • Guy Johnston practising The Protecting Veil at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Divine Wisdom, February 2024

    ‘He had a mystical aura’
    Cellist Guy Johnston on John Tavener’s masterpiece The Protecting Veil

  • Violinist Elena Urioste and pianist Tom Poster. 2023

    Soaring, searching and silent for too long
    The remarkable life – and music – of composer Mel Bonis

Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

Guides

  • 1216 Portrait of Ethel Smyth<br>PBBHMT 1216 Portrait of Ethel Smyth

    Know the score
    Without Ethel Smyth and classical music's forgotten women, we only tell half the story

    Leah Broad
  • From left: The Tempest, The Minotaur, L’amour de loin, Hamlet

    The best classical music works of the 21st century

  • A guide to contemporary classical music

  • Fireworks light the sky above the Brandenburg Gate shortly after midnight in Berlin, Friday, Jan. 1, 2016. Hundred of thousands of people gathered for the New Year celebrations, welcoming the new year 2016 at the area around the Brandenburg Gate in the capital of Germany. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)

    A musical tour of Europe
    Stephen Moss's guide to the music of Europe's great cities: Berlin

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