Classical

 There’s always that fear when there’s only one piece on the programme, and so no interval, that you are in for a long slog. But far from it with Stéphane Denève’s interpretation of Mahler’s full and complex 6th Symphony. 

Northern Ballet Theatre's reputation has grown immeasurably since David Nixon took over as Artistic Director in 2001. Since then he has created and choreographed nine full-length ballets for the company and in December last year won an OBE for services to dance. 

Annual festival of traditional music taking place at venues across the city. In 2010, the festival introduced a street fare.

Richard Egarr, Music Director of the Academy of Ancient Music, was the guest conductor of this performance of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven compositions played by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. 

As a child I don’t suppose I was alone in pondering heaven and hell and wondering how it was decided which I should end up in at my death. John Henry Newman’s long poem, The Dream of Gerontius, is a dream just about that.

Thank goodness nobody has fiddled with the wonderful acoustics of the Usher Hall during its recent upgrading. It remains one of the great concert halls and fittingly so for a city so highly regarded around the world for its festivals, of which classical music forms an enormously important part. There are still 2,200 seats and if standing is also allowed as many as 2,900 can be in the auditorium.

Anthony Goldstone and Caroline Clemmow brought warmth, enthusiasm and clarity to a recital designed to give further recognition of the work of Hans Gál. Turnabout they introduced each piece with fascinating details that even the specialist audience may not have known. Nor, but not quite turnabout, were they working the same end of the Yamaha’s keyboard for each piece.

After the setbacks and the multi-million pound cost over-runs, the new wing at the Usher Hall is ready to be unveiled to the world. From tomorrow people will be able to explore the much-awaited new addition to the grade A-listed building, which completes the £25 million, second phase of refurbishment of the Lothian Road concert hall.

Neeme Järvi was the Royal Scottish National Orchestra’s Principal Conductor from 1984 to 1988 when he was in his late forties. Much respected, his career had begun with his native Estonian National Symphony Orchestra where he is due to return as Principal Conductor later this year. In the meantime he and his talented musical family became American citizens and he had a long period with orchestras in Detroit followed by New Jersey. Currently he is with the Residentie Orkest in The Hague.

The Edinburgh International Festival may have come first, but generally it's the Fringe that Edinburgh is best-known for. There's really nothing quite like it: "the largest show on Earth" they say. The latest stats seem to bear that out: the Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2009 saw 34,265 performances of 2,098 shows at 265 venues. It's a sprawling, anarchic, sleepless month of live performances.

Berlioz has a reputation for grandiose pieces, involving a multitude of musicians, but L’Enfance du Christ is different.  Written in 1853/54 for a chamber orchestra and small chorus it is an expose of exquisite musical minimalism. 

The U.K. premiere of Michael Daugherty’s Deus ex Machina was cannily placed between two firm favourites, Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite No 1 and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No 5. Previously unheard music is not a crowd-puller. But Daugherty is a well respected American composer, describing himself as originally a lounge bar pianist, who was born in 1954.

We welcomed to the podium Sir Andrew Davis who, for the past nine years, has been the Music Director and Principal Conductor of Lyric Opera of Chicago, but much of his career has been with symphony orchestras around the world. Indeed, it began as an assistant conductor in Glasgow.

This was an evening of French music and the full house included our bejewelled Lord Provost and his entourage.

The Scottish Chamber Orchestra concert at the Queen's Hall was led by renowned Australian conductor Sir Charles Mackerras.  The orchestra and he work particularly well together - last May they were awarded the Critics' Award at the 2009 Classical Brit Awards for their recording of Mozart's Symphonies 38 - 42 and last night's concert began with another Mozart Symphony, No 35 in D major, the Haffner Symphony.

A cracking performance by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra of his favourite symphony, Beethoven’s No 7, conducted by the young American conductor Andrew Grams is how a wise and seasoned neighbour described the second half of the evening’s music.

This year in Vienna their Philharmonic Orchestra celebrated the New Year under the baton of a distinguished elderly French conductor. Whilst we in Edinburgh had the good fortune to have a young Austrian conducting the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. David Danzmayr is in his third year as the RSNO’s assistant conductor.

In this pre-Christmas week the RSNO tours Scotland’s concert halls, but only the Usher Hall shows its festive mood with two large Christmas trees at either side of the stage. So said Christopher Bell, our exuberant conductor whose sequined shoes glistened in front of the red tops of the ladies of the orchestra and white jackets of the men.

The prospect of a rousing overture, the return of a brilliant young French violinist and a favourite symphony had most of the seats in the Usher Hall filled. The Royal Scottish National Orchestra was back under the command of its Music Director, Stéphane Denève, who had been conducting in North America for a few weeks. His exuberant talent of welcome and brief introduction to the music ahead was again clearly appreciated.

Vibrato was forbidden and the orchestra repositioned because, for this concert, Sir Roger Norrington was very much in charge.   Speaking beforehand a double bassist who has been in the orchestra since 1974 said it had been one of the most interesting weeks of concert preparation in all his 35 years.