After a barrage of outrage from music lovers and musicians worldwide, the BBC has reversed its decision to disband its revered vocal ensemble – for now.

A chorus of leading classical and choral music figures have added their signatures to a letter of protest to the BBC over deep cuts to its orchestras and the disbanding of the BBC SIngers.

The director of the BBC’s epic Hollow Crown on Shakespeare, Judi Dench, Hugh Bonneville and Benedict Cumberbatch. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Classical celebrities mix it with the likes of Kylie, Elton and Pharrell for Beach Boys charity release.

British cellist encourages young musicians to “think outside the box” to succeed in a tough music industry.

Deborah Humble will give the Australian premiere of a work Mendelssohn didn't want you to hear.

A 170 year old Mendelssohn manuscript, found in a private collection, to be auctioned next month. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Hear Guy Noble as you never have before in this preview of The Guy Noble Radio Show. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Head of BBC Radio 3 and Proms programmer to leave after 15 years in post. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

With this issue we get to No 59 in Hyperion’s Romantic Piano Concerto series. That’s an awful lot of concertos, and although the series has included Saint-Säens and Rachmaninov, the vast majority of works have been obscure, neglected or (in the current case) completely unknown.   The two Polish composers represented here were musicians of local reputation: highly capable but not notably individual. Aleksander Zarzycki was the older (1843-1898). His Grande Polonaise was composed in 1859, and while it has quiet sections and even a passage that sounds like French operetta, its basic aim is to imitate Chopin – for political as much as musical reasons. Chopin remains inimitable, however, and the piece comes over as a Polish imitation of Liszt. Zarzycki’s later Piano Concerto is a compendium of mid-century Romantic gestures, expertly assembled, but it lacks a true memorability that would set it apart.   Władysław Żeleński (1837-1921) is slightly better known (though I must confess not to me). His Piano Concerto of 1903, a sprawling work in three movements, shows a sophisticated harmonic and orchestral palette. While possibly overwritten, it contains several individual episodes, like the first movement’s coda in Straussian waltz time and the Polish dance form (a krakowiak)…

An excellent album of works by a composer whose musical trajectory was almost as varied as Stravinsky’s, but much less well-known.

Globalisation, in terms of international orchestral performing standards, seems to be the high tide which has lifted many boats! Excellent Bruckner performances are no longer the exclusive domain of the illustrious ensembles of Berlin, Vienna, Leipzig, Dresden and Amsterdam. Last year I reviewed a persuasive Bruckner Five with Philippe Herreweghe and the Champs-Elysées forces – an orchestra of only 68! Donald Runnicles had critics diving for the thesaurus with his 2012 Proms Bruckner Eight (which he also conducted in Sydney a few weeks earlier) with the BBC Scottish Orchestra. His flair for maintaining lucid textures while blending different orchestral voices was singled out for particular praise, as they are here in Bruckner’s Seventh. That said, however, I take issue with the Guardian reviewer who spoke of this performance as expansive. At 60 minutes? You must be joking! Even Solti, who rarely stopped to smell the flowers, managed to take 70 minutes in his second recording. Runnicles provides an uneccentric account. The stopwatch can be an unreliable ally, especially here where, paradoxically, his tempi don’t actually sound as swift as the overall duration would indicate. They are also well integrated and the gradation of the climaxes. His ability to know how…