Prom 3, BBC Young Musician at 40 review - multi-layered birthday cake

★★★★ PROM 3, BBC YOUNG MUSICIAN AT 40 Multi-layered birthday cake

Fabulous foursomes, five Gershwinistas and tziganery offer three-quarters perfection

How do you go about co-ordinating a spectacular like this, the first ever BBC Young Musicians' Prom? With 23 brilliant soloists from clarinettist Michael Collins, not even the winner of the first event 40 years ago, to 16-year-old Lauren Zhang, who stunned us all with her fleet interpretation of Prokofiev's monster Second Piano Concerto this year, commissions or reworkings dealing with batches were the best idea. And all of them worked superbly.

London Piano Festival, Kings Place review - feasts of fearless fingerwork

★★★★ LONDON PIANO FESTIVAL, KINGS PLACE Feats of fearless fingerwork

A galaxy of great repertoire, world premieres included

What has 12 hands, 18 legs, 176 keys and two page-turners? Party night at the London Piano Festival, of course. The six-pianist, two-piano marathon on Saturday evening was a high point of this delectable four-day event – though far from the only one.

Pagliacci/L’enfant et les sortilèges, Opera North review - off and on with the motley

PAGLIACCI / L'ENFANT ET LES SORTILÈGES, OPERA NORTH Masterpieces by Leoncavallo and Ravel launch a season of one-acters in style

Masterpieces by Leoncavallo and Ravel launch a season of one-acters in style

The first two one-acters in Opera North’s season called The Little Greats were unveiled on Saturday. There are six in all, scheduled on a mix-and-match basis so Leeds opera-goers can choose their own tapas menu: grab one show, choose from various pairs, or even try three on a Saturday (including a matinee) if you want to.

‘A massive party full of treats and surprises’: Annabel Arden on six mini masterpieces at Opera North

'A MASSIVE PARTY FULL OF TREATS AND SURPRISES' Annabel Arden on six mini-masterpieces at Opera North

The director of two operas in the Little Greats festival waxes lyrical

The first day of rehearsals for The Little Greats was thrilling and terrifying in equal measure: the casts of six shows, the whole chorus, all the creative teams and management milling around and talking nineteen to the dozen in the big, reverberant Linacre Studio at Opera North. Old friends, new colleagues – it was like a mixture of freshers’ week and a first night party. The noise was stupendous.

Prom 24 review: Crebassa, Philharmonia, Salonen – thrilling performance of Adams masterpiece

★★★★★ PROM 24: CREBASSA, PHILHARMONIA, SALONEN Conductor and performers raise the roof but deserve a bigger audience

Conductor and performers raise the roof but deserve a bigger audience

The title of John Adams’s Naive and Sentimental Music is a bit of a tease. Read literally it promises – or threatens – unsophisticated mawkishness, though that is the last thing it delivers. But maybe it was this title, alongside relatively unfamiliar 20th century repertoire, that kept the audience away. For whatever reason this was the worst attended main Prom I have been to for a long time – and what a shame, as it was also one of the very best.

Classical CDs Weekly: Falla, Ravel, Antoine Tamestit, The American Brass Quintet

CLASSICAL CDS WEEKLY French and Spanish piano music, plus seductive viola sounds and phenomenal brass playing

French and Spanish piano music, plus seductive viola sounds and phenomenal brass playing

 

Osborne's RavelFalla: Nights in the Garden of Spain, Ravel: Piano Concertos Steven Osborne (piano), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Ludovic Morlot (Hyperion)

Aimard, Philharmonia, Salonen, RFH

Unearthed Stravinsky is a revelation, while Ligeti and Ravel dazzle

A new work by Igor Stravinsky is always going to be a major event, so Sunday evening’s UK premiere of his rediscovered Funeral Song was hotly anticipated. The score disappeared after its first performance and was thought lost in the Russian Revolution, but the orchestral parts were rediscovered at the St Petersburg Conservatory in 2015, and, after a modern premiere at the Mariinsky in December last year, the work is now being performed around the world.