Alfred Hickling
The Coronation of Poppea, Grand Theatre, Leeds
The first grand opera? Or the template for soap opera? Tim Albery’s deliciously amoral new version at Opera North suggested a bit of both. Read our review
London Sinfonietta/Jonny Greenwood, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
The performance of Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint began awkwardly with the Radiohead guitarist prodding at an unresponsive laptop. But once the computer was OK the multi-tracked odyssey was sublime. Read our review
Stewart Lee: Indeterminacy, Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool
Who knew that comedian and Observer commentator Stewart Lee was a closet John Cage afficianado? The random readings of Cage’s minute-long short stories were presented exactly as they should be: absolutely straight and completely hilarious. Read our review
Götterdämmerung, Leeds Town Hall
Opera North’s semi-staged “austerity Ring” reached its magnificent apotheosis, begging the question: does Wagner really need a theatre? Read our review
National Youth Orchestra/Paul Daniel, Leeds Town Hall
The National Youth Orchestra is one of our most priceless musical assets. Larry Goves - himself an ex-NYO member - supplied a new piece entitled the Rules that subverted them brilliantly. Read our review
Michael Nyman Symphony no 11: Hillsborough Memorial, Liverpool Cathedral
It was almost impossible to separate the music (much of which Nyman borrowed from earlier works) from the occasion. Families of the bereaved embraced as soprano Kathryn Rudge intoned the names of the 96 victims on the 25th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster. Read our review
Royal Northern Sinfonia/Zehetmair, Sage, Gateshead
Thomas Zehetmair’s stock has risen so high during his 12-year tenure with the Royal Northern Sinfonia as to make him practically irreplaceable. Fortunately, they’ve got another ascendant instrumentalist/conductor, Lars Vogt, to replace him. Read our review
Hallé/Wigglesworth, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
Ryan Wigglesworth conducted the premiere of his own richly melodic violin concerto - spare, imaginative proof that new music can be both meaningful as well as accessible. Read our review
BBC Philharmonic/Gruber/Macmillan, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
Gary Carpenter’s new commission, SET, was a deeply cool double concerto for jazz drummer and saxophonist. Martin France and Iain Ballamy swung it till the chains went slack. Read our review
The Nutcracker, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
Andrew Gourlay - a former assistant conductor at the Hallé - is a star in the ascendant. He scraped off the crust of over-familiarity from Tchaikovsky’s score with the briskness of a man brushing frost from his car windscreen. Read our review
Erica Jeal
Salome and Elektra at the Proms
Two of the most intense operas in the repertoire, on two consecutive days, with two consummate central performances: the Proms’ Strauss weekend left audiences reeling. Christine Goerke’s Elektra, backed by the BBCSO under Semyon Bychkov, was certainly impressive; but Nina Stemme’s radiant Salome, with Donald Runnicles conducting the forces of the Deutsche Oper, was simply stunning. She said afterwards that it was the last time she would sing the role. Read the review
Berlin Philharmonic at the Proms
Is the Berlin Phil the finest orchestra in the world? I thought so after hearing this programme of Rachmaninov and Stravinsky under Simon Rattle, which showcased the best wind playing I’ve heard all year. Read the review
Ariadne auf Naxos, Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera pulled out all the stops for its latest revival of Strauss’s sumptuous opera, with a top-notch cast, an orchestra on great form under Antonio Pappano, and an unforgettable star turn in the title role from Karita Mattila. Read the review
Thebans, English National Opera
This was, surprisingly enough, Julian Anderson’s first full-scale opera, and ENO did it proud. The score allied the beauty we’ve come to expect from this composer to an uncompromising retelling of the Oedipus story, and the result was searing. Read the review
The Creation: OAE under Rattle
Haydn’s Creation is a work I have often felt a bit ho-hum about, but I’m pretty sure I’ve been wrong - and that is largely thanks to the sheer vividness and joy of this performance by the OAE under Simon Rattle. Read the review
Mendelssohn and Schumann: LSO under Gardiner
John Eliot Gardiner was alleged to have thrown a punch at one of the LSO’s brass section in the weeks before this concert, but if there was tension between conductor and orchestra it did this exhilarating concert no harm at all. Read the review
Beethoven Sonatas: Renaud Capucon and Frank Braley, Wigmore Hall
Violinist Renaud Capucon and pianist Frank Braley played all Beethoven’s violin sonatas over one weekend at the Southbank Centre. I saw only the final concert, but the edge-of-the-seat freshness of their playing made me wish I’d been at all three. Read the review
Brahms Sonatas: Leonidas Kavakos and Yuja Wang
An all-Brahms programme encompassing all three Violin Sonatas was not a programme for the neutral - but then the violinist Leonidas Kavakos is not one to compromise. Brahms fans – and yes, I am – had a treat hearing how the slightly different styles of him and pianist Yuja Wang both complemented and chafed at each other, making for charged interpretations.
In Broken Images: Birtwistle at the Southbank Centre
We have heard a lot of Harrison Birtwistle in his 80th year, but perhaps we should hear as much every year. The Southbank Centre’s celebratory weekend showcased the UK premiere of his new piano concerto, plus a whole programme of works, given by the London Sinfonietta, that were as delightful as they were rigorous. Read the review
Martin Kettle
Philharmonia/Andris Nelsons, Royal Festival Hall, London
Mesmering attention to detail and the last movement of Brahms’s 4th taken at the right speed.
Daniel Barenboim/Martha Argerich, Berlin
Two legends in thrilling form, an irresistible partnership in spite of the wrong notes. Read our review
Strauss: Die Frau ohne Schatten, Royal Opera House, London
Superb conducting by Semyon Bychkov of a supercharged and ambitious score. Read our review
Verdi Requiem: Orch Santa Cecilia/Pappano, Royal Festival Hall, London
Outstanding soloists headed by Joseph Calleja, and Antonio Pappano at his most committed. Read our review
Chamber Orchestra of Europe/Bernard Haitink
Perfect is the only word, I’ll never hear Beethoven’s sixth done better. Read our review
Winterreise: Simon Keenlyside/Emmanuel Ax, Wigmore Hall
An outstanding partnership of vocal and theatrical. Even better than Jonas Kaufmann or Gerald Finlay in the same cycle this year. Read our review
Sir Thomas Allen/Malcolm Martineau, Wigmore Hall
A wonderful occasion and triumph of art over nature, since Allen was ill. Read our review
ORR/John Eliot Gardiner, Barbican
Vitality was the watchword in Berlioz and Beethoven’s fifth.
Pélleas et Mélisande: Philharmonia/Salonen, Royal Festival Hall
Meticulous conducting from Salonen and real French singers proved that a great tradition is not dead yet. Read our review
BBC Symphony Orchestra & Chorus/Oramo/Garrick Ohlsson, Barbican
A once-in-a-generation chance to hear the craziest piece in the repertoire and realise how serious it is. Read our review
Kate Molleson
Delusion of the Fury, Edinburgh International Festival
An unforgettable revival of Harry Partch’s outlandish music drama, for which Ensemble MusikFabrik spent three years building an orchestra of replica Partch instruments and learning to play them. Composer/director Heiner Goebbels oversaw a production that was wacky, ritualistic and deeply moving.
Read the review
Wozzeck, City Halls, Glasgow
A semi-staging of Berg’s devastating opera with all the dramatic power and psychological insight of the hardest-hitting full productions and a revelatoryattention to musical detail. Thomas J Mayer was heartbreaking in the title role; the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Donald Runnicles provided glittering, grippingly intense orchestral commentary.
Read the review
Piotr Anderszewski, Edinburgh International Festival
Always surprising, always poetic, Anderszewski refuses to moderate his playing into any kind of palatable middle ground. His Edinburgh recital of Bach, Schumann and Szymanowski was brash, gruff, tender and totally captivating. A true original. Read more
Westerlings St Magnus Cathedral, Orkney
The BBC Singers gave a fearless performance of Peter Maxwell Davies’s restless, haunting 1970s work in a late-night midsummer concert at Kirkwall’s St Magnus Cathedral. I’ll never forget the way those piercing soprano lines – plucked from the air like shrieking sea birds – resonated around the Norse-medieval vaults.
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St Matthew Passion Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh
John Butt and his Dunedin Consort have been on stellar form this year, and their beautifully spacious Palm Sunday performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion was typical: colourful, contemplative and lithe, simultaneously stylish and full of unstuffy scholarly insight. Read the review
Chris Watson, University of Glasgow Concert Hall
Once founder of Sheffield post-punk band Cabaret Voltaire, Watson is now one of the world’s leading wildlife sound recordists. This live mix of oceanic soundscapes was an operatic epic, beginning on Shetland with a raucous chorus of coastal birds before following seals, dolphins and pistol shrimps across the stormy Atlantic and arriving in the Dominican Republic where male humpback whales sing mating songs of Wagnerian proportions. Read more
Lars Vogt and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, EIF
The German pianist played Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto with swagger and brawn, but the performance was really special for the quiet moments and the little notes. Vogt’s Adagio was languorous and simple and unsuspecting corners of the outer movements were suddenly, breathtakingly tender. Robin Ticciati and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra made ideal supple accomplices. Read more
Steven Osborne’s Vingt regards sur l’enfant Jesus, Abbey Church, North Berwick
Few pianists are able to scale Messiaen’s two-and-a-half-hour outpouring of ardour, hope and imagination; Steven Osborne has the capacity to make the work his own. This performance encompassed the stillness, muscle, dazzling imagery and subtle wit of Messiaen’s writing, while sun streamed through the seaside church windows and gulls screeched in the background. Read more
Erwan Keravec, The Lemon Tree, Aberdeen
The radical Breton bagpiper brought an ear-bending programme of pipes and classical voices to Sound festival. There was bold singing from Donatienne Michel-Dansac, Vincent Bouchot and the astounding Basque vocalist Benat Achiary, whose improvisations flitted from gospel to scat to the scintillating poetry of Kenneth White. Read more
Christian Zacharias, Crail Church
Zacharias closed a day-long Schubertiad at the East Neuk Festival with a monumental account of Schubert’s Sonata in B-flat Major, D960. Raging with life and resolve, this was late Schubert at his most candid, conflicted and human. Read our review
See also: Tim Ashley, Andrew Clements, Rian Evans and George Hall’s choices | Tom Service’s top 10
