Hampson and Sidorova review – style over substance with a whiff of the cruise ship

The US singer Thomas Hampson paired with accordionist Ksenija Sidorova to perform highlights from Schubert’s Winterreise alongside Weill and Piazzolla. Alas much of this disappointing evening felt like a vanity project

Dvořák: Symphony No 9 album review – Shani brings a natural freshness to a familiar work

The conductor, soon to finish an eight-year tenure at the helm of the Dutch orchestra, leaves the orchestra in good shape

La Traviata review – gripping and genuinely moving staging opens Garsington’s summer season

Louisa Muller’s richly detailed production of Verdi’s tragedy is elevated by Madison Leonard’s magnetic Violetta and Douglas Boyd’s musical direction that reinvigorates the familiar score

Colin Matthews: Seascapes album review – the songs teem with detail

Soprano Claire Booth and baritone Marcus Farnsworth celebrate the influential British composer’s kaleidoscopic soundworld with this collection of four song cycles

La Fanciulla del West review – insightful staging reveals the power of Puccini’s maverick masterpiece

Martin Lloyd-Evans’s credible production roots the action in time and place. Amanda Echalaz is a richly drawn and touching Minnie and conductor Matthew Kofi Waldren adds colour and drama

125th anniversary gala concert review – back to 1901 as Wigmore celebrates birthday playing to its strengths

The veteran chamber music venue kicked off a celebratory two-week festival with a starry lineup of performers playing works that had featured on the first ever programme

Tosca review – Puccini’s high-octane bloodbath bonanza makes for a shocking festival kick-off

Caitlin Gotimer’s Tosca goes from 0-60 in mere moments while the London Philharmonic unlock the barely contained violence in Ted Huffman’s long-awaited exceptional staging

Dido and Aeneas review – close your eyes and this was a tremendous performance

The Monteverdi Choir’s account of Purcell’s opera was delivered with devastating clarity, but it was somewhat smothered beneath a 200ft ship’s hull

Or, the Whale album review – Caroline Shaw and Andrew Yee collaboration offers intimacy and joy

These eight tracks, a mix of new compositions and arrangements of existing work, are tender and imaginative

Wagner: Der Ring des Nibelungen album review – Luisi has a keen sense of the operatic architecture

Captured live in concert performances, Fabio Luisi’s clear-sighted command and strong orchestral playing make this Wagner set frequently impressive, with Mark Delavan an authorative Wotan

Feldman and Beckett: Words and Music review – hypnotic absurdism at Sheffield Chamber Music festival

This fascinating and bold concert featured the works of the ‘word man’ and the ‘note man’, and their absurdist radio play Words and Music

Requiem for America review – Brent Michael Davids gives the invisible a voice in his urgent new work

The BBC Symphony Orchestra and conductor Teddy Abrams performed the world premiere of Davids’ sombre and powerful new work that tells of the colonisation of North America

Anne-Sophie Mutter review – star violinist celebrates 50 years in brilliant style

Mutter’s anniversary tour opened with a programme of Beethoven, André Previn and – ever a champion of new music – the European premiere of Aftab Darvishi’s Likoo, a rhapsodic lament for women under the Iranian regime

Britten Sinfonia: Britten in America review – delightful music from a fruitful vacation

This was a virtuosic, witty performance of a mixed programme of works mostly by Benjamin Britten and Aaron Copland, who spent the summer of 1939 together in Woodstock

BBCNOW/Bloch/Eberle review – this was a riveting and beguiling concert

Soloist Veronika Eberle brought sweet, pure tone tone to Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, with Jorg Widmann’s new cadenzas complementing the work perfectly. Music by George Benjamin and Strauss further revealed orchestra and conductor in their element