Time becomes space, sounds become colours and shapes, and the classical elegance of St John’s Waterloo floods with emotion that’s real enough to touch.
It doesn’t take much: just the voices of the New London Chamber Choir and a handful of musicians who believe in every note. Composer Andrew Norman hurls himself into the eternal city of Rome, and lets his memories and impressions cascade into the ears. And in Rothko Chapel, Morton Feldman gazes at the paintings of Mark Rothko and responds with music as still and as deep as those haunted colours. A true modern classic: hear it, and be transformed.
The UK premiere of Juste Janulyte’s Iridescence by the BBC Singers opens a portal into the expanding musical universe of symphonic electronics – 'symphonic' in the ancient Greek meaning 'harmonious'.
Continents, computers and electric dreams: Tristan Murail’s non-electronic orchestral classic Gondwana charts a course to new worlds with electronics sound from Steven Daverson and Misato Mochizuki.
Vintage Stockhausen plus a new adventure from British-Iranian composer and sonic explorer Shiva Feshareki – the world premiere of her Barbican commission for the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
Sex and drugs and symphony orchestras: Hector Berlioz claimed that his Symphonie fantastique depicted an opium dream, but really he was just high on the sound of a supersized orchestra going for broke. Love, witchcraft, severed heads – it’s all here, in psychedelic colours, and you’d better believe that it’s a hard act to follow. That’s why Edward Gardner and the superb violinist Augustin Hadelich are setting the scene with Britten’s powerful Violin Concerto, and with the world premiere of Sphinx by David Sawer – a British composer whose raw imagination can give even Berlioz a run for his money.
When Johan Dalene won the Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition in 2019, one critic predicted that he’d become the greatest Swedish violinist in generations: a player with ‘a wondrous tone, an elegant straightforwardness and a freshness of utterance.’ We just say come and hear for yourself, as Dalene returns for his second Cadogan Hall concert as the RPO’s Artist-in-Residence. He joins forces with the powerhouse conductor Shiyeon Sung in Tchaikovsky’s hugely popular, gloriously tuneful Violin Concerto. First, though, experience the primal splendour of a Nordic dawn, as seen by Jean Sibelius, and then brace yourself for the unbridled life force of Carl Nielsen in full torrent. His extraordinary Second Symphony took its inspiration from a painting in a Danish pub – and you’d better believe it goes straight to the head!
Across a single evening the Chopin pianist par excellence revisits the complete Chopin Études – a set of ground-breaking, multi-faceted works.
Two of Stravinsky’s thrilling ballet scores frame a brilliant new cello concerto.
Genre-defying violinist Nemanja Radulović, the Philharmonia Orchestra’s Featured Artist this season, is soloist, director and arranger in this deeply personal programme.
Sofia Gubaidulina contemplates unfinished J S Bach as the Carduccis survey Shostakovich in triplicate across some two decades.
Conductor Elim Chan and pianist Benjamin Grosvenor: a dream-team joins the BBC Symphony Orchestra in Shostakovich, Britten and the UK premiere of Elizabeth Ogonek’s ravishing Moondog.
When Omer Meir Wellber is conducting, there’s no such thing as a routine concert – every performance is a chance to make unexpected connections; to hear familiar pieces in new and fascinating ways. Haydn blows the roof off with one of his most explosive symphonies, and the teenage Mahler gets seriously emotional in a rarely-heard early gem. Add another artist who strikes sparks – violinist Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider – and Tchaikovsky’s hugely popular Violin Concerto will never have sounded more alive. Three very different composers, but in Wellber’s hands, they’re all part of the same unforgettable story.
Sensational young pianist Mao Fujita gives the first of two performances of Mozart with the Philharmonia.
In a personal centenary tribute to his mentor, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Benjamin Appl traces the great baritone’s life story through song, readings and memories.
It always feels good to make music with friends – and when that friend is soprano Renée Fleming, you just know that something extra-special is on the cards. No introduction is required for one of the LPO’s best-loved guests, the American soprano whose personality lights up the world’s greatest stages and whose voice has been compared to double cream. ‘Unforgettable’ was how one critic described her 2022 Gala with the LPO, and tonight she returns to sing Richard Strauss’s radiant Four Last Songs. Music that never grows old, sung by one of the supreme voices of our time.
David Fenessy's Bog Cantata is based on a medieval book of psalms which was found perfectly preserved in an Irish peat bog in 2006. Hear this for yourself alongside Baroque masterworks by Bach and Telemann.
The opening of Also sprach Zarathustra might be one of the most recognisable in classical music. But there’s much more to this exhilarating work than its 2001: A Space Odyssey fame.
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A string quartet, an oboe and a clarinet – it’s not a large group. There are no microphones; no special effects.
But today they’ll speak a hundred languages, vault across oceans, travel in time and weave sounds like you’ve never imagined. Six LPO players immerse themselves in the contemporary culture of Britain and America; hear them break away, jump for joy and hit the dancefloor in a concert of music by five composers who defy convention and genre to create some of the most original music of the 21st century. This is chamber music, for sure – but there’s nothing small about the emotions.
The magisterial Mitsuko Uchida is known for her interpretation of Viennese composers: hear her perform some of their greatest late works for piano.
The second concert in the Czech Philharmonic’s residency boasts Mozart's vivacious concerto written for (and tonight performed by) two siblings alongside Mahler's Symphony No 5.