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Classical music & opera

  • Peter Hoare (Faust) and Christopher Purves (Mephistopheles) in Terry Gilliam’s staging of Berlio’z The Damnation of Faust at English National Opera 2011.

    Feature
    The devil has all the best tunes: the musical life of Goethe’s Faust

  • Beethoven for Three – Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos and Yo-Yo Ma at the 2024 Proms.

    Proms 2024
    ‘Thrilling, unforgettable … there is nothing else like it!’: readers on their Proms highlights

    As 2024’s festival comes to a close, readers tell us about their favourite performances of the eight-week season that saw 90 concerts in the Royal Albert Hall and beyond, all live on BBC Radio 3
  • Fulfilling a childhood dream … Angel Blue at the Last Night of the Proms.

    Review
    Last Night of the Proms – pauses stretched patience but warmth and a Mexican wave won out

    Pianist Stephen Hough was magical, soprano Angel Blue was on velvet-voiced form and a sporting theme brought inspired silliness
  • Volunteers celebrate the launch of Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture: they are lined up and cheering behind large white letters spelling out the city's name, and wear black T-shirts with a B shaped to look like a heart. They are standing in a large paved plaza in front of a large, historic stone building

    News
    ‘The UK is invited’: Bradford reveals 2025 City of Culture lineup

  • George Benjamin

    Album review
    Benjamin/Crimp: Picture a day like this – jewel-like precision

  • Man with index fingers raised in air in front of yellow/blue background

    News
    John Eliot Gardiner starts new orchestra and choir after 2023 assault apology

  • Vilde Frang.

    Album of the week
    Elgar: Violin Concerto album – Vilde Frang’s exceptional performance makes this one of the finest to appear on disc

Live reviews

  • Excellent singers … (L to R) Eleanor Dennis as Eva and Georgia Mae Bishop as Magdalene in Die Meistersinger.

    Die Meistersinger review – some fine solo turns but Wagner’s score is done few favours

  • The LSO conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano peform Hector Berlioz Roman Carnival, Serge Rachmaninov Piano Concerto No 1(Yuja Wang: piano) Camille Saint-Saëns Symphony No 3, Organ Symphony (Anna Lapwood: organ) in the Barbican Hall on Sunday 15 Sept. 2024. Photo by Mark Allan

    LSO/Pappano/Wang/Lapwood review – high on feelgood factor

  • Tribute … the Fauré Song Gala at Wigmore Hall.

    Fauré Song Gala review – subtlety and sensitivity mark centenary of composer’s death

  • Yuja Wang x Hockney at the Lightroom.

    The week in classical: Yuja Wang x Hockney; Proms 61 & 62: Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra/Rattle – review

Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

Album reviews

  • Dramatic conviction … Sabine Devieilhe.

    Rameau: Les Boréades album review – crisp authoritative playing harnesses full-colour Rameau

  • Daniel Inzani.

    Daniel Inzani: Selected Worlds review – unhinged, exhilarating adventures in genre-hopping

  • Joshua Bell (violin), Jeremy Denk (piano) and Steven Isserlis (cello).

    Mendelssohn: Piano Trios album review – celebrity soloists are a balanced delight

  • Mao Fujita - publicity handout image

    72 Preludes: Chopin, Scriabin, Yashiro album review – Fujita’s no-frills approach brings care and clarity

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People

  • Jakub Jozef Orlinski at Warner Music Uk, South Kensington, London, for Q&A New Review, 26/06/2024. Sophia Evans for The Observer

    Q&A
    Countertenor Jakub Józef Orliński: ‘Breakdancing feeds into my performances – music dictates the way you move on stage’

  • Roger Wright, CEO of Britten Pears Arts

    ‘I’ve always been a glass half full person’
    Aldeburgh festival’s outgoing CEO Roger Wright

  • Jerrold Northrop Moore began his Elgar researches as a student by interviewing people who had known the composer.

    Obituary
    Jerrold Northrop Moore

  • Actor and writer Paterson Joseph

    ‘I was told I was stupid’
    Peep Show’s Paterson Joseph on his debut novel – and writing three operas

Loads more stories and moves focus to first new story.

You may have missed

  • Antonio Vivaldi.

    Feature
    Vivaldi taught Venetian orphan girls – did they help write his music in return?

  • People seemed to be conscious, judging from strawberries consumed … Glastonbury 2024.

    Radio 3's Georgia Mann
    I’ll take your brain to another dimension … my classical DJ set at Glastonbury

  • Backstage during dress rehearsals

    The Guardian picture essay
    Love, laughs and lavish designs: The Merry Widow at Glyndebourne

  • ‘Our first time’ … Gemma New will conduct the world premiere of City of Floating Sounds.

    In the key of 5G
    The ‘dimensionalist’ who wrote a symphony for 1,000 phones

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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