Classical

The 2010 Edinburgh International Festival Fireworks Concert will this year celebrate "Music from the Movies", it was announced by Festival Director Jonathan Mills this morning at the launch of the EIF programme taking place in August and early September.

James Lowe conducted a concert of songs and string works from three composers who had to emigrate from their homeland because of political turmoil: Hans Gál from Germany, Sergei Rachmaninoff from Russia and Béla Bartok from Hungary. Between the music we heard, in their own words, what their displacement meant to them.

An estimated 220,000 people across the Scottish capital enjoyed the explosive finale to this year's Edinburgh International Festival and the summer festival season last night, the BoS Festival Fireworks Concert.

Tram works on Princes Street meant that many couldn't get as close as they wanted to the centrepoint of the show, Edinburgh Castle, but new vantage points were introduced and local radio stations Forth One and Forth 2 broadcast the concert live on the night, as in previous years.

Ivo Pogorelich excites debate and controversy today as much as he did in 1980 at the Fryderyk Chopin Piano Competition when Martha Argerich left the jury in protest when the young Croatian pianist was eliminated in the 3rd round. She described him then as a genius. Purists may disagree.

The nineteen strong choir of St Andrew’s and St George’s under its director, Brigitte Harris, included four soloists for a delightful lunch time concert playing three pieces, by Handel, Haydn and Mozart.

Over the years Anglicans have become used to a weekly diet of Choral Eucharist which bit by bit has replaced Choral Matins. So the 9.30am service at the Church of St John the Evangelist, the only church on Princes Street, brought back happy memories.

Every morning throughout the Edinburgh International Festival there is a chamber concert at the Queen's Hall.

Felix Mendelssohn was born two hundred years ago and this we celebrated in the first half of the concert.

The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment make you listen again to Haydn.

Under Sir Roger Norrington they put an energy and pace into an all-Haydn evening at the Usher Hall on Saturday (22 August) that shook any dust off the audience's conception of the 18th century composer.

This is a real treat of song and dance from two dozen boys and girls aged between 8 and 12 from villages in South Africa, close to the border with Swaziland and Mozambique.

Choral Classics was the first of 19 late night classical music concerts to be held in August in a really historic building a few steps off the Royal Mile. Arrive a few minutes early and there's a cup of chocolate at the back of the candlelit church included with the ticket.

The three young soloists made this a delightful evening of French sacred music at St Andrew's and St George's.

We hear the church organ on Sundays playing familiar hymn tunes and at concerts playing some of the great rousing music, but there is a considerable repertoire of other works not easily to be heard

See, the conqu'ring hero comes!

Handel's oratorio tells of the triumph of the Jewish warrior-hero Judas Maccabaeus over the invading enemies of the Israelites, part of the decaying Seleucid empire famous for its army of 500 elephants. Thomas Morell's libretto is taken from the first eight chapters of the first Book of Maccabees. The arias, recitatives and choruses take note of victories and setbacks, but other than for the fall of Apollonius, do not describe them.

Adrian Sims returned for the third year of four in his series of Chopin piano recitals with poise and confidence playing for us seven delightful pieces yesterday afternoon. The earlier ones were less well known but each different and well described in the programme sheet.

The choice of last night's opening concert of the Edinburgh International Festival was thought by many to be an insensitive one. Handel's Oratorio Judas Maccabeus was composed in honour of the Duke of Cumberland's victory over the Jacobites when they were annihilated by his troops at the battle of Culloden in 1745.

This year's International Festival slogan is "artists without borders," which is why the appearance of cultural ambassadors for Israel - the Jerusalem Quartet - provoked a pro-Palestinian demonstration outside the Queen's Hall this morning as most Palestinian citizens do not have the same freedom of movement as Israelis, living as they do within confined borders. An unusual introduction to a morning chamber recital, the pavements thronged with placards and leaflets.

Today's recital at the Queen's Hall had to be changed at the last minute due to the original performer, Ivan Moravec, being ill. However, Steven Osborne, the accomplished Scottish pianist was able to step in at short notice.

Concert performances of operas are often merely static shadows of fully-staged performances, but this double-bill by the Mariinsky Opera was a revelation.

Variously described as a dramatic psalm or an oratorio, this powerful exposition of the life of the biblical king came into being as the incidental music for a play.