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Nash Ensemble: Ravel album review – catches the music’s dazzling light and intriguing shade

The chamber group’s all-Ravel CD is an impeccable farewell to its much-missed founder

Philharmonia/ Rouvali review – Fazil Say’s concerto sounds an urgent wakeup call

The UK premiere of the Turkish composer’s piano concerto Mother Earth was balanced with theatrical Sibelius and a sure-footed reading of Dvorak’s upbeat Eighth Symphony

Nicola Benedetti and friends review – delicious bite-sized musical snacks from a violinist still top of her game

The violinist was joined by an unconventional ensemble of cello, guitar and accordion for a relaxed evening that felt like a super-polished jam session

Lachenmann: The String Quartets review – Quatuor Diotima draw you into his strange and compelling soundworld

The instruments mutter and shriek, dissolving the line between noise and music on this authoritative and fascinating disc

Beethoven & Brahms: Violin Concertos album review – as supple and coherent as ever as the ACO celebrates 50

Under Richard Tognetti the ACO has established itself as world-class and this 50th anniversary live recording of these two great concertos are a wonderful souvenir of a remarkable group

Hania Rani: Non Fiction review – atmospheric and absorbing storytelling by Polish composer

From ghost-story minimalism to wartime memory, Rani’s two new works, premiered here, shimmer with imagination, although issues of balance diminished the piano concerto

Huddersfield Contemporary Music festival review – ghostly echoes, fearless voices and the rattle of milk frothers

World and UK premieres launched the opening concerts of this compelling gala of new sounds, mixing precise ensemble play with electronic tracks and unlikely percussion sound effects

Partenope review – edgy and erotic Handel update

Nardus Williams is stylish as she is swept up in a maelstrom of passions and longings while pursued by three suitors in a revival of Christopher Alden’s 2008 production

LSO/Pascal review – from an effervescent marimba to funeral gongs in compelling new music concert

This programme featured the LSO Futures at its best – three world premieres by Omri Kochavi, Sasha Scott and Donghoon Shin, whose piano concerto was brought to sparkling life by human dynamo Seong-Jin Cho

Battle of the Sexes review – tennis’s most famous match becomes kitschy, pacey opera

Tenor Nicky Spence was the comic ringleader in this all-singing all-dancing Hollywood-ready work that was anything but subtle

Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius album review – Gardner and the LPO’s reading is bold and dramatic

Recorded live at the BBC Proms, Edward Gardner and the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s propulsive performance, with soloists Allan Clayton, Jamie Barton and James Platt, is one to cherish

Brahms: Symphony No 1, Tragic Overture album review – Petrenko and the Berliners give Brahms organic momentum

Brahms’s Tragic Overture leaps to life while there is much interest in a careful reading of the composer’s First Symphony in this new recording from the Berlin Philharmonic with their chief conductor

CBSO/Vänskä review – weird brilliance and neurotic tics in a compelling programme

Soprano Helena Juntunen brought Sibelius’ vocal works to dramatic life in a remarkable concert that paired the Finnish composer with late Shostakovich

Víkingur Ólafsson: Opus 109 album review – pianist’s concept album opens up transcendent vistas

Olafsson’s account of Beethoven’s Op 109 is one of the most beautiful on record, the centrepiece of a recording that links the composer to Bach and Schubert

The Devil’s Den review – folk horror opera with morris dancing and a sinister rabbit is an eccentric delight

Isabella Gellis’s first full-length stage work has the feel of a modern mystery play as it unpacks the legends surrounding an ancient Wiltshire monument

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