Mark Padmore, Mitsuko Uchida/ Benjamin Baker, Timothy Ridout, Wigmore Hall online/BBC Radio 3 review – hail and farewell

MARK PADMORE, MITSUKO UCHIDA / BENJAMIN BAKER, TIMOTHY RIDOUT, WIGMORE HALL, RADIO 3 A landmark series closes with majesty, and mischief

A landmark series closes with majesty, and mischief

Of course, we just had to end with a midsummer Winterreise. The Wigmore Hall’s month of lockdown concerts for BBC Radio 3 had begun with a legendary elegy – the Chaconne from Bach’s D minor Partita, written according to musical folklore in memory of his first wife, with which Stephen Hough so gravely, beautifully, broke the pandemic silence on 1 June.

Classical CDs Weekly: Franck, Holger Falk, Ursula Paludan Monberg

CLASSICAL CDS WEEKLY Belgian orchestral music, a trip to Venice and a journey round the horn

Belgian orchestral music, plus a trip to Venice and a journey into the horn's past

 

Franck TingaudFranck: Psyché, Le Chasseur maudit, Les Éolides RCS Voices, Royal Scottish National Orchestra/Jean-Luc Tingaud (Naxos)

Franck by Franck: Symphony in D Minor, Ce qu’on entend sur la montagne Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France/Mikko Franck (Alpha Classics)

Don Giovanni/Sibelius plus, Swedish RSO, Harding, livestream review - dark studio rituals

DON GIOVANNI/ SIBELIUS PLUS, SWEDISH RSO, HARDING Vivid Mozart style from top cast and conductor, but concepts work only fitfully

Vivid Mozart style from top cast and conductor, but concepts work only fitfully

"Touch her and you die," sings Masetto in telling Don Giovanni to keep away from his Zerlina. There's certainly trouble, though not instant death, when fingers briefly meet. Mozart's dark comedy has much in Da Ponte's text about hands-on business but only a few points where it's actually seen; love and sex don't really happen, though there are two skirmishes, one fatal.

Le nozze di Figaro, Garsington Opera, OperaVision review - natural comedy, musical sublimity

★★★★★ LE NOZZE DI FIGARO, OPERAVISION Natural comedy, musical sublimity

Durable period setting enshrines perfect characterisations. Plus a Handel special

Only the birds will be singing at country opera houses around the UK this summer. Glyndebourne seems over-optimistic in declaring that it might be able to launch in July; other companies with shorter seasons have made the regretful but right decisions to call it a year.

Cosi fan tutte, English Touring Opera review - a blissful, uncomplicated delight

★★★★ COSI FAN TUTTE, ENGLISH TOURING OPERA A blissful, uncomplicated delight

A youthful romp of a production brings the sunshine back to Mozart's complicated comedy

Cosi fan tutte is, as the opera’s subtitle clearly tells us, “A School for Lovers”. But too often these days it can feel like a school for the audience. Joyless productions lecture us sternly on the battle of the sexes – on chauvinism, feminism, cynicism and sex – until we’re battered into fashionable discomfort. A happy ending? For Mozart’s most complicated comedy? Don’t be naïve.

Andsnes, Mahler Chamber Orchestra Soloists, Wigmore Hall review - conversations with Mozart

★★★★ ANDSNES, MAHLER CHAMBER ORCHESTRA SOLOISTS Conversations with Mozart

The Norwegian pianist and friends show us the Austrian master in sunlight and shadow

Leif Ove Andsnes’s long-term partnership with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra has already yielded rich fruit, and the Mozart quartets and trio he performed last night with members of the top-notch nomad band proved just as succulent. However, I would hardly have been alone in leaving the Wigmore Hall with my strongest impressions stirred by the single solo work that the versatile Norwegian master-pianist allowed himself.

Angelich, Aurora Orchestra, Collon, Kings Place review - warm embraces from good companions

★★★★ ANGELICH, AURORA ORCHESTRA, COLLON, KINGS PLACE Mozart concerto very much in earnest, sweetness and light in early Beethoven

Mozart concerto very much in earnest, sweetness and light in early Beethoven

"New Dawns" as a title smacked a bit of trying to shoehorn a fairly straightforward Aurora programme in to Kings Place's Nature Unwrapped series. Only Dobrinka Tabakova's short and sweet Dawn made the link, and that was old, not new (composed in 2007). Maybe the dawn intended in Mozart's C minor Piano Concerto, K491.