Danish String Quartet review – captivating performance from a world-class group

The quartet communicated intimately and naturally in a programme of music by Shostakovich, Ravel and Stravinsky

Manchester Camerata review – mental torments build up to a royal meltdown

A clever programme brought a mounting sense of lost grip, from Errollyn Wallen voicing the shame of Hamlet’s Ophelia, to Schumann’s fraught love declaration, and Peter Maxwell Davies’s Eight Songs for a Mad King

The Marriage of Figaro review – Danielle de Niese’s deft direction weds finery with fun

A touring show was quite a challenge for the opera star’s first directorial gig, but dynamic singing, charismatic orchestral play and clever stage jokes pull it off brilliantly

St Vincent review – majestic orchestral transformations of jagged art-pop

The mercurial artist reworked her catalog with technical mastery – and playful dance moves – accompanied by the Boston Pops orchestra

BBCNOW/Bancroft review – conductor takes final bow in imaginative programme of vivid colours and emotions

Works about infatuation and deep feeling were fitting choices with which the Ryan Bancroft bid a celebratory farewell to the BBC National Orchestra of Wales

Krishna review – the mystery of John Tavener’s ‘mystic pantomime’ is why it has been staged

Singers and orchestra toiled admirably with this posthumous world premiere about the Hindu god, complete with inflatable deadly serpent. But the work feels straight from the 19th-century Orientalism playbook

Taylor Swift: I Knew It, I Knew You review – giddy up! Song for Toy Story cowgirl Jessie is Swift’s best in years

Full of handcrafted care and the rootsy soul of her country origins, this gently elated song is a reminder of what fans love about Swift … and the film series

Zoh Amba: Eyes Full review – raw, rugged country rock also has real tenderness

Better known as a formidable free jazz saxophonist, these thrashing songs about the artist’s Tennessee childhood home share a similar genre-pushing intensity

Gintė Preisaitė: Instruments of Forgetting and the Singing Bone review – atmospheric, unsettling ambience

From birdsong to pool balls, this Lithuanian musician – a graduate of Copenhagen’s buzzy Rhythmic Music Conservatory – mixes beguiling found sounds into left-field pop and modern classical

Hourglass album review – Simone Dinnerstein gives Glass room to breathe

With a refreshingly organic approach, the US pianist and her string ensemble revitalise the modern minimalist master’s score for The Hours and his Tirol Concerto

Lizzo: Bitch review – a spirited star who just can’t rediscover her groove

After scrapping an album and starting anew, Lizzo still sounds lost amid these weak genre-hopping songs. Perhaps the zeitgeist has simply left her behind

Beethoven: The Violin Sonatas Vol 1 album review – fresh-as-a-daisy performances from a duo with a gift for storytelling

Violinist Alina Ibragimova and pianist Cédric Tiberghien, on period instruments, offer zest-filled and elegant readings of four Beethoven sonatas

Mike D review – ex-Beastie Boy’s first UK gig in two decades, in a Tyneside bingo hall, is uproarious fun

Teeing up a forthcoming solo album, the rapper doesn’t reheat his old Beastie Boys sound, instead throwing down everything from ballads to Kraftwerk references

Saint Levant review – Palestinian pop star makes Australian debut to an ecstatic, sold-out crowd

Even slight hand gestures elicit screams from his rapturous fans, at a show that brings politics to the party – and ends with a cameo from his father

Vespers review – haunting clash of cultures conjures Vivaldi’s Venice

This resourceful semi-staging blended choral collective Idrîsî Ensemble’s ancient chants with Iestyn Davies and Figure’s Vivaldi.