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INSANE: Beethoven | Vintage Vibes

Forget vinyl v digital debates, this kind of musical ‘authenticity’ brings real rewards

Period instruments are miles away from retro affectation, and as two Proms this week will show, can actually bring historical music up to the moment

The Guardian - UK

Munich Philharmonic/Lahav Shani/Martha Argerich review – the great pianist gleams

Argerich stilled a capacity crowd for this prom with her lucid playing of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 2, though the orchestral parts of the programme lacked overall direction

The Guardian - UK

Berlin Philharmonic/ Petrenko/ Hadelich review – flawless musical beauty

In their second Proms concert, the Berlin Phil brought Beethoven’s Violin Concerto (with Augustin Hadelich the virtuosic and breathtaking soloist), and a detailed and compelling take on Scriabin’s third symphony

The Guardian - UK

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Beluga whales die at major US aquarium just weeks after Canada rescue

IN FULL

The Independent UK

Two beluga whales die at Chicago aquarium including one rescued from shuttered Canadian theme park

Rain, a 20-year-old beluga rescued from Canada, and Beethoven, a 34-year-old who had been at Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium for decades, both died on Wednesday

The Independent UK

LA Phil/Dudamel; Fantasia Orchestra / Fetherstonhaugh/Glennie reviews – high-contrast programming

The first of two evening proms began with the Los Angeles Phil’s polished but polite Beethoven and intoxicating Adès. Later, the Fantasia orchestra’s bitty playlist-type programme only occasionally sparked into life.

The Guardian - UK

New VR experience puts you at the heart of a live symphony

CUTTING edge technology is being used to give an experience where anyone – no matter their musical experience – will be able to find out what…

The National (Scotland)

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From Charli xcx to Secret Lives of Gypsy Wives: the week in rave reviews

The glitch-pop great is back with a banger-stuffed new album, and reality TV may have some new stars thanks to Channel 4. Here’s the pick of the week’s culture, taken from the Guardian’s best-rated reviews

The Guardian - UK

BBCPhil/Noseda/Selaocoe review – a proms concert that was everything the festival does best

A programme – Bach, Beethoven and a Jessie Montgomery premiere – that looked odd on paper made perfect sense in the hall, with Abel Selaocoe a mesmerising soloist in Montgomery’s ‘These Righteous Paths’

The Guardian - UK

“One day I was in an elevator with Miles Davis and he said, ‘Hey, do you got a wah wah yet?’ ‘No, I don’t play a wah wah.’ He says, ‘You gotta get a wah wah!’”: Carlos Santana on Miles and McLaughlin, Hendrix and SRV, and his quest for eternal melody

“I wanted my guitar to sound like a female – like the voice of my favourite singers”

MusicRadar

“I Have 12 Felonies”: 82 Surprising Facts That Don’t Match People’s Looks At All

Despite looking like a roadie for Motörhead, I am a classically trained pianist and Beethoven is god.

Bored Panda

Making earwax melt and teeth rattle: the project returning music to our bodies

Listeners in the 17th and 18th centuries experienced music in a startlingly vivid – and physical way. A fascinating academic project is wondering if we should let ourselves be much more moved, and get moving. Plus: a prime minister’s musical legacy?

The Guardian - UK

“Steve Albini died, a friend died, my father died, the father of my wife died. But I want to focus on the positive”: How a composer's approach and 40 DD-3 pedals helped noise masters MONO to heal their grief

Aiming to match sadness with beauty, guitarist and composer Taka Goto explains why, on new album Snowdrop, he channeled classical music through a distortion pedal

Guitar World

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

The Guardian - UK

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The Guardian - UK

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

The Guardian - UK

‘Really entertaining in a horrible way’: the indestructible appeal of Tosca

With its screams, sex, bells and bloodshed Puccini’s opera was initially derided as a noisy disaster. Ahead of Glyndebourne’s first ever production, we look the ‘shabby little shocker’ that’s become one of opera’s most bankable masterpieces

The Guardian - UK

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

The Guardian - UK

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

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The Guardian - UK

Beethoven: The Sonatas for Piano and Cello album review – Watkins and Bax have a shared impulse to deliver eloquence

Cellist Watkins’ career-long immersion in the composer pays dividends in his pairing with Alessio Bax’s unfussy virtuosity

The Guardian - UK

Michael Tilson Thomas obituary

American conductor who brought high-octane dynamism to performances by the London Symphony Orchestra

The Guardian - UK

‘We did a seance for Beethoven, to see what he thought’: the playful, pioneering life of field-recording maestro Annea Lockwood

The New Zealand composer burned pianos, sampled earthquakes and recorded Belfast’s peace walls. And at 86 is still invested in her life’s work: to appreciate the music in everyday sound

Evening Standard

Composition dedicated to war victims tops classical music poll

The Armed Man: A Mass For Peace by Sir Karl Jenkins has been voted the nation’s favourite piece of classical music.

MusicRadar

“You start putting expectations on yourself. ‘OK, I’ve got to compete with Bach and Beethoven and Mozart and The Beatles!”: An in-depth conversation with rock guitar’s most maverick virtuoso, Paul Gilbert

Featuring: his “mouse” heartbeat, the jazz pianist so good he's “inhuman” and the most courageous thing a shredder can do

The Conversation

A concerto played with trash: Barbican offers a masterclass in thought-provoking classical programming

The Barbican Centre’s 2025-26 concert season, Fragile Earth: Sounds of a Living Planet, brings the connection between music and nature, and its vulnerability to climate change, to the fore.

The Guardian - UK

Elisabeth Leonskaja review – piano legend’s unerring sense of architecture reveals connections and kinships

In her recital programme of Beethoven, Schoenberg, Chopin, Webern and Schubert, the Austrian pianist brought new insights and expected delights

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