Beethoven 5 Vol 4: Salvatore di Sciarrino album review – classical weight, contemporary subtlety
Jonathan Biss pairs Beethoven’s fourth concerto with Sciarrino’s 21st-century miniature, creating a programme that is thoughtful and vividly expressive
BBCSO/Stasevska: Become Ocean review – elemental, unsettling and beautiful
A brilliantly thought-through sequence of music by Thorvaldsdottir, Ligeti and John Luther Adams made for a powerful and immersive experience
The Hermes Experiment: Tree album review – vivid voices and bold textures from inventive ensemble
An exhilarating album of new and reimagined works by Errollyn Wallen, Laura Moody and others reaffirms this group’s reputation for fearless musical curiosity
Carmen review – big on noise but short on chemistry
ENO’S fourth revival of Calixto Bieito’s classic production starts at an exhilarating gallop but is thrown off course by its ill-fitting translation and onstage clamour
Giustino review – sublime, and ridiculous, Handel rarity returns to Covent Garden
Joe Hill-Gibbins’ scaled-down staging is sensitive, and the music beautifully played and sung, but this is an uneven work dramatically
Arvo Pärt at 90 review – impassioned and authoritative performances from Estonia’s finest
Tõnu Kaljuste conducted the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir in a concert celebrating the composer’s haunting and hypnotic music
Susanna review – Opera North’s arresting take on Handel’s proto-#MeToo tale
Dance, sign language, outstanding singing and precise orchestral playing all illuminate this powerful tale of gendered violence and abuses of power
Oum – A Son’s Quest for His Mother review – hybrid forces bring Bushra El-Turk’s haunting score to vivid life
A tour-de-force by actor Nadia Amin centres this tale of the inherited trauma of exile while a trio of singers virtuosically blend Middle Eastern and European operatic idioms
Christian Tetzlaff: Elgar and Adès Violin Concertos album review – refreshing and exhilarating
The violinist’s performance of these two concertos is energetic but also thoughtful, with the BBC Phil sounding electric
The Elixir of Love review – an intoxicating brush with a snake oil salesman
English Touring Opera’s witty production sets this Donizetti comedy at the seaside, complete with donkey rides, fish and chips and a persuasive conman
London Philharmonic Orchestra/ Gardner review – muscular Emperor sets up edge-of-the-seat finale
The LPO season opener saw Yefim Bronfman on keen form in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 5, before the orchestra delivered a white-hot, bittersweet Tchaikovsky Fifth
Cinderella review – fun-forward fairytale kicks off ENO makeover
Julia Burbach’s energetic staging of Rossini sets the tone for English National Opera’s new split-site era, bringing lashings of chorus comedy and a pacy conductor’s debut by Yi-Chen Lin
Philharmonia/ Rouvali/ Ólafsson review – orchestra opens 80th celebrations with sparkle and style
Víkingur Ólafsson’s Beethoven was clear, contemplative and witty, in a concert that also featured Olivier Latry at the mighty RFH organ and a UK premiere from Gabriela Ortiz
Baltimore SO/Alsop: Clyne, Abstractions album review – Clyne writes accessible and attractive music
Marin Alsop’s fine recording offers a chronology of Anna Clyne’s orchestral writing
WDR SO Cologne Chamber Players: The Romantic Room, Chamber Works by Spohr album review – plenty to discover
The early 19th century German composer wrote a prodigious amount of music, little of it known today. This rewarding collection features his larger-scale chamber works