My Concert Highlights of 2018

Two electrifying performances by Rattle and the LSO: Mahler’s Ninth at the Barbican and Janacek’s Sinfonietta at the Edinburgh Festival.

Honegger‘s masterpiece Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher performed by the Concertgebouw Orchestra under the inspired direction of Stéphane Denève.

A superb Lieder recital at the Ryedale Festival by Benjamin Appl, blessed with a beautiful baritone voice and considerable interpretive skills, reminding one of his teacher, the late and great Fischer-Dieskau.

The Takacs Quartet at the Edinburgh Festival excelling in Dvorak and, with Marc-André Hamelin, Dohnanyi’s striking second Piano Quartet.

Vitaly Pisarenko‘s piano recital in York, revealing that there is much to admire in the “smaller” pieces across the repertory from Schubert through Debussy to Prokofiev.

Rediscovering Ligeti‘s amazing First String Quartet with members of the Museum Orchestra in Frankfurt.

The joint mastery of Roderick Williams and Iain Burnside at Ripon Cathedral in Schubert’s Winterreise: barren in its themes but fertile in its musical imagination.