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www.classicalsource.com

@classicalsource.com

news, reviews and comment on classical music worldwide (but mainly in the UK and USA)

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Latest posts by www.classicalsource.com @classicalsource.com

Photo: David Gutman

Photo: David Gutman

The RPO is going from strength to strength these days and there was no mistaking the enthusiasm of players and audience despite the customary noises off: bronchial intrusions, mobile phone calls, the occasional whir of air conditioning, the odd dropped beaker.
bit.ly/4kX5cCX

24.02.2026 18:30 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
A scene from The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny by Kurt Weill & Bertolt Brecht @ London Coliseum. An English National Opera production directed by Jamie Manton. Conductor, André de Ridder. (Opening 16-02-2026) ©Tristram Kenton 02-26 tristram@tristramkenton.com

A scene from The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny by Kurt Weill & Bertolt Brecht @ London Coliseum. An English National Opera production directed by Jamie Manton. Conductor, André de Ridder. (Opening 16-02-2026) ©Tristram Kenton 02-26 tristram@tristramkenton.com

This statement opera, playing for 2 hours 40 minutes including a single intermission in its present incarnation, grew out of a more modest Mahagonny-Songspiel lasting little longer than tonight’s interval.
bit.ly/4kSBeA3

24.02.2026 18:24 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Photo: David Gutman

Photo: David Gutman

A clever if geographically suspect marketing conceit unites two concerts in the LPO’s ongoing season.
bit.ly/4kSzSoX

24.02.2026 18:14 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Photo: David Gutman

Photo: David Gutman

A short homily from the conductor, required to explain that the interval had moved from that advertised in the printed programme, served also to introduce the music of Vítězslava Kaprálová (1915‑40). A Martinů student (and
bit.ly/4rzWtJd

24.02.2026 18:13 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Palm Beach Opera’s La Boheme Photo: Bruce Bennett

Palm Beach Opera’s La Boheme Photo: Bruce Bennett

Palm Beach Opera began its 2026 season with a stellar production of La bohème, featuring an outstanding cast, director Peter Kazaras’s atmospheric staging, attractive sets and costumes, and excellent playing and choral singing under Vincenzo Milletarì who
www.classicalsource.com/concert/palm...

10.02.2026 19:10 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Photo: David Gutman

Photo: David Gutman

Mostly with Mahler the old problem is stood on its ahead. Performances, even those of the unfinished Tenth, have become so frequent than it can be difficult to recapture the excitement they once engendered.
www.classicalsource.com/concert/juro...

26.01.2026 17:15 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Oh Joy Oh Rapture Photo: Danny Bristoll

Oh Joy Oh Rapture Photo: Danny Bristoll

#ConcertReview
The New York Gilbert & Sullivan Players’ winter ‘mini season’   opened with a thoroughly charming performance of H.M.S. Pinafore, the fourth of the duo’s fourteen collaborations and their first breakthrough hit. 
www.classicalsource.com/concert/the-...

26.01.2026 17:06 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Constantine Kitsopoulos conducts the New York Philharmonic performing Art of the Score: Home Alone in Concert, Music by John Williams at David Geffen Hall. Photo: Chris Lee

Constantine Kitsopoulos conducts the New York Philharmonic performing Art of the Score: Home Alone in Concert, Music by John Williams at David Geffen Hall. Photo: Chris Lee

The Philharmonic marked this Yuletide season with a screening of Chris Columbus’s 1990 comedy, Home Alone, accompanied by John Williams’s Oscar-nominated score telling the story of eight-year-old Kevin McCallister, who defends himself and his home against a
www.classicalsource.com/concert/new-...

08.01.2026 14:58 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Glyndebourne: Handel\'s Messiah Glyndebourne Productions Ltd. Photo: Andy Paradise

Glyndebourne: Handel\'s Messiah Glyndebourne Productions Ltd. Photo: Andy Paradise

Glyndebourne is no stranger to Handel, nor to the Royal Albert Hall, with the company’s annual visit to the Proms.
www.classicalsource.com/concert/hand...

08.01.2026 14:47 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 1
The Cast of ENO’s Partenope 2025 Photo: Lloyd Winters

The Cast of ENO’s Partenope 2025 Photo: Lloyd Winters

Although nominally an opera seria like most of Handel’s other London operas of the 1720s and '30s, English National Opera's description of Partenope (1730) as a 'rom com' is closer to the mark.
www.classicalsource.com/concert/engl...

08.01.2026 14:32 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
ir?t=theclassour01 21&l=as2&o=2&a=B0F38S1GQZ

ir?t=theclassour01 21&l=as2&o=2&a=B0F38S1GQZ

Back in 2013 Giovanni Antonini embarked on Haydn 2032, where, in time for the 300th anniversary of his birth, he would record with the two orchestras he is most associated with all of Haydn’s Symphonies and major choral works interspersed with pieces mainly by
bit.ly/4arpsJu

03.12.2025 13:11 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
ir?t=theclassour01 21&l=as2&o=2&a=B0FPXRWNBM

ir?t=theclassour01 21&l=as2&o=2&a=B0FPXRWNBM

Víkingur Ólafsson usually creates interesting programmes...this is very impressive Beethoven that I wouldn’t want to be without.


#Bach #Beethoven #Opus109 #Schubert #VíkingurÓlafsson
www.classicalsource.com/cd/vikingur-...

25.11.2025 10:29 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet\'s recital at Lincoln Center. Photo: Da Ping Luo

Jean-Efflam Bavouzet\'s recital at Lincoln Center. Photo: Da Ping Luo

Marking the 150th anniversary of Maurice Ravel’s birth, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet is touring the composer’s piano music.


Over the course of three hours with two intermissions this recital was ravishing.
www.classicalsource.com/concert/jean...

24.11.2025 16:40 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
ir?t=theclassour01 21&l=as2&o=2&a=B0FRZSG7Y3

ir?t=theclassour01 21&l=as2&o=2&a=B0FRZSG7Y3

Leif Oves Andsnes and Bernard Chamayou are very different players and given the latter isn’t usually known for his emotional depth, vital in late Schubert, one could, perhaps be forgiven for approaching this album with some trepidation.
www.classicalsource.com/cd/schubert-...

24.11.2025 16:31 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Bancroft Photo: LSO

Bancroft Photo: LSO

Sofia Gubaidulina, Russian-born but resident in Germany for the last decades of her life, died in March of this year, so it is entirely fitting that a good many recent concerts have paid tribute to her many different styles of composition and extraordinary
www.classicalsource.com/concert/ryan...

20.11.2025 12:55 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
London Philharmonica Orchestra Photo Benjamin Ealovega

London Philharmonica Orchestra Photo Benjamin Ealovega

When reviewing a debut concerto appearance by a young shooting-star there is always a complicating factor. @LPOrchestra @southbankcentre #ConcertReview
www.classicalsource.com/concert/hima...

20.11.2025 12:38 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
ir?t=theclassour01 21&l=as2&o=2&a=B0FPRDWXK4

ir?t=theclassour01 21&l=as2&o=2&a=B0FPRDWXK4

These masterworks, which were composed in 1915, feature orchestral palettes that concentrate on clarity and subtlety as opposed to full-blown Romantic heft and there is no sense of incongruity when Falstaff and Prince Hall burst on the scene...


#Rachmaninoff
bit.ly/3XAA1lT

18.11.2025 16:32 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
eno 1

eno 1

The announcement was made today that Jenny Mollica, Chief Executive of English National Opera (ENO), has been appointed the new CEO of the Roundhouse. She will step down from her current role in summer 2026. @E_N_O #News
www.classicalsource.com/english-nati...

18.11.2025 11:59 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Matthew Kofi Waldren & the Orchestra of ENO Photo: English National Opera, Drew Forsyth

Matthew Kofi Waldren & the Orchestra of ENO Photo: English National Opera, Drew Forsyth

English National Opera (ENO) today celebrates the centenary of the birth of Sir Charles Mackerras by opening applications for the next ENO Mackerras Fellowship – the first to take place under the company’s new Music Director Designate, André de Ridder.
www.classicalsource.com/eno-launches...

18.11.2025 11:51 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
unnamed 5

unnamed 5

Jake Heggie and Gene Scheer’s company-commissioned 2023 world premiere opera receives nomination for Best Opera RecordingAlbum represents first release from the new Houston Grand Opera label, created with London Symphony Orchestra’s label LSO
www.classicalsource.com/houston-gran...

18.11.2025 11:40 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Full Orchestra Photo: Luca Migliore

Full Orchestra Photo: Luca Migliore

It was with Mahler and the Philharmonia that the Royal Opera’s new music director first made a mark with London audiences.
www.classicalsource.com/concert/jaku...

18.11.2025 11:23 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Photo: David Monteith-Hodge

Photo: David Monteith-Hodge

Two rare one-Act operas featuring stories of jealous, murderous lust, offer some fascinating juxtapositions – Der Wald (premiered 1902), Ethel Smyth’s second opera, but a late essay in Wagnerian Romanticism if more sensational
www.classicalsource.com/concert/guil...

18.11.2025 11:10 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
The Railway Children by Mark-Anthony Turnage with libretto by Rachael Hewer, at Glyndebourne, East Sussex, Autumn Season 2025. Directed by Stephen Langridge, designed by Nicky Shaw, conducted by Tim Anderson. Photo: Richard Hubert Smith

The Railway Children by Mark-Anthony Turnage with libretto by Rachael Hewer, at Glyndebourne, East Sussex, Autumn Season 2025. Directed by Stephen Langridge, designed by Nicky Shaw, conducted by Tim Anderson. Photo: Richard Hubert Smith

It's been quite a year for Mark-Anthony Turnage, with the widely acclaimed premiere of Festen at the Royal Opera House, and now the premiere of another opera, The Railway Children, his first work for Glyndebourne. Festen adapted a
www.classicalsource.com/concert/glyn...

18.11.2025 10:56 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Brahms Tragic Overture in D minor, Op. 81 Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68 Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra Kirill Petrenko

Brahms Tragic Overture in D minor, Op. 81 Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68 Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra Kirill Petrenko

To-date Kirill Petrenko and the Berlin Philharmonic have recorded little of the German symphonic tradition so many associate with the orchestra, so this looked like an interesting addition to their catalogue.
bit.ly/44ew8Xs

17.11.2025 16:13 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
ir?t=theclassour01 21&l=as2&o=2&a=B08DCS361B

ir?t=theclassour01 21&l=as2&o=2&a=B08DCS361B

Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances have fared well on disc with classic performances from, amongst others, Kubelik, Sejna and Talich. #cdreview @CzechPhil @SirSimonRattle
www.classicalsource.com/cd/dvorak-sl...

21.10.2025 19:28 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
ir?t=theclassour01 21&l=as2&o=2&a=B0FDBLWTBR

ir?t=theclassour01 21&l=as2&o=2&a=B0FDBLWTBR

As well as being a performer and critic, the Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968) wrote a considerable body of conventional diatonic music in a wide variety of idioms. #cdreview
www.classicalsource.com/cd/platero-y...

21.10.2025 19:17 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
New York Philharmonic Photo: Brandon Patoc

New York Philharmonic Photo: Brandon Patoc

Since 2024, when Jaap van Zweden ended his tenure as music director, the New York Philharmonic has been in a transitional period and will remain so until 2026, when Gustavo Dudamel assumes the directorship. #ConcertReview @nyphil
www.classicalsource.com/concert/new-...

21.10.2025 19:04 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Schoenberg - Verklärte Nacht, Chamber Symphony No. 1, Die Jakobsleiter, Variations for Orchestra & Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 36

Schoenberg - Verklärte Nacht, Chamber Symphony No. 1, Die Jakobsleiter, Variations for Orchestra & Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, Op. 36

This set features pieces that represent Arnold Schoenberg at different points in his career. It starts with that orgy of late-romantic chromaticism Verklarte Nacht in the 1943 arrangement, scored for a minimum of 64 strings.
bit.ly/47clnpA

17.10.2025 11:57 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
Dudamel and Corigliano Photo: Chris Lee

Dudamel and Corigliano Photo: Chris Lee

For his second program in his season as the Philharmonic’s Music and Artistic Director Designate, Gustavo Dudamel showcased two Symphonies separated by nearly two centuries.
www.classicalsource.com/concert/new-...

24.09.2025 17:39 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0
The London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano perform Benjamin Britten: Violin Concerto (Janine Jansen: violin) and Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No 10 on Sunday 21 Sept. 2025 Photo: Mark Allan

The London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano perform Benjamin Britten: Violin Concerto (Janine Jansen: violin) and Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No 10 on Sunday 21 Sept. 2025 Photo: Mark Allan

Some works emerge after an explosion of creative intensity in a matter of weeks; others sit and brood for some time before seeing the light of day.
www.classicalsource.com/concert/two-...

24.09.2025 17:27 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0