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The Guardian - Back to homeThe Guardian

Classical music & opera

  • ‘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

    Musician had held top roles at Glyndebourne opera and in Chicago, Melbourne and Toronto orchestras
  • Panache … Sir Mark Elder and Eri Nakamura perform the original version of Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra

    Review
    Simon Boccanegra – vast forces bring Verdi’s ‘fiasco’ to vivid life

    Opera Rara joined with the Hallé under Sir Mark Elder for this semi-staged performance of the original version of Verdi’s opera
  • Philippa Boyle – Southbank Sinfonia/Reynolds concert.

    Review
    Southbank Sinfonia/Reynolds – remarkable young orchestra shows that less can be more

  • ‘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

  • Schubertiade 20th anniversary gala recital at Leeds Lieder festival 2024.

    Review
    Leeds Lieder festival Opening Gala – a good old-fashioned Schubertiade

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

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

Live reviews

  • Lucia di Lammermoor directed by Katie Mitchell, staring Nadine Sierra

    Lucia di Lammermoor review – a vocally breathtaking, disturbing to witness descent into madness

  • Nadine Benjamin, Human Voice. Credit Dominique Nok

    The week in classical: Roman Fever/ The Human Voice; NYO, National Youth Brass Band; Celebrating Sir Neville Marriner – review

  • Murray Perahia at the piano with the ASMF Chamber Ensemble at Wigmore Hall

    ASMF Chamber Ensemble review – Perahia makes welcome return to celebrate Marriner’s centenary

  • Alison Balsom on stage with Antonio Pappano in Bristol.

    LSO/Pappano/Balsom review – elephant honks kick off Wynton Marsalis’s trumpet showcase

Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

Album reviews

  • Katia Skanavi and Kirill Gerstein Press publicity portrait supplied by PR © Andrej Grilc

    Music in Time of War: Debussy and Komitas album review – fascinating collection of composer’s final works

  • Intense, engaging … Isabelle Faust.

    Britten: Violin Concerto Chamber Works album review – bravura and brilliance as Faust turns to Britten’s violin writing

  • ERIN MORLEY - singer - press handout image 2024 - ERIN MORLEY-0470 V2-1-scaled

    Rose in Bloom album review – crystalline debut of a new high coloratura star

  • Harmonic colours … The 12 Ensemble.

    Metamorphosis: Works by Finnis, Vivier, Leith & Strauss album review – teasingly diverse

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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

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You may have missed

  • 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

  • Visitors queue at Halberstadt’s St Burchardi church in September 2020 for the 14th sound change in John Cage’s composition, Organ²/ASLSP As Slow as Possible.

    ‘There’s a certain madness to it'
    Fans await new chord in John Cage gig with 616 years left to run

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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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