My Concert Highlights 2016

Schoenberg’s massive Gurrelieder at the Edinburgh Festival conducted by Donald Runnicles:  no wonder he turned to serialism; he couldn’t go any further with tonality

Steven Kovacevich‘s piano recital at the Buxton Festival: a profundity, particularly with Schubert’s A Major Sonata, which seems to have grown with his years

Leeds Lieder which under the tutelage of Joseph Middleton and Roderick Williams reached new heights and is now a festival of international standing.

Jeremy Irons reading of T.S.Eliot juxtaposed with the late Beethoven Quartets played by the Heath Q at the Ryedale Festival: most impressive combination of poetry and music I can remember

The beautiful pianism of Anna Tsybuleva, the Leeds prizewinner, at the Northern Aldborough Festival in a cleverly devised programme devoted to Fantasy pieces

Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony at the Edinburgh Festival with the Leipzig Gewandhaus conducted by 89-year old Herbert Blomstedt with unbelievable energy and power.

AND THE WORST …

Olli Mustonen at the piano bashing away at Bach.