Mercury News, California — Next week, Michael Tilson Thomas dials the wayback machine on his long tenure with the San Francisco Symphony and returns to the highly unusual, overtly theatrical work by Claude Debussy that the conductor introduced to the Bay Area in its full form ... more info

Guardian Music — How are ping-pong and violin-playing similar? If the tension at the starting line was a tune, what would it sound like? Tom Service talks to the musicians trying to bridge sport and art for 2012's Cultural OlympiadMusic and sport go together like …... more info

Guardian Music — Wigmore Hall, LondonThough the group of composers highlighted in this Wigmore series (Ravel and his contemporaries Massenet, Saint-Saëns, Fauré and Debussy) had their share of personal tensions, this initial programme – consisting of works compo... more info

Guardian Music — Royal Festival Hall, LondonOnce very familiar, Manuel de Falla's Nights in the Gardens of Spain has been sidelined of late. Hearing it performed by Jean-Efflam Bavouzet at a Philharmonia matinee conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy, many were probably lef... more info

Guardian Music — Boston Symphony Chamber Players (BSO Classics)(BSO Classics)The Boston Symphony Orchestra's special connections with the French orchestral repertoire go back generations, to its work with conductors like Charles Munch and Pierre Monteux, and the cham... more info

Guardian Music — John Bridcut on Ken Russell, a film-maker who 'resisted the facts getting in the way of his visual imagination'The wild visual imagination of Ken Russell brought classical music to a whole new audience, and made his name notorious in respectable musi... more info

Guardian Music — Symphony Hall, BirminghamThe end is in sight for Infernal Dance, Esa-Pekka Salonen's odyssey through Bartók's music with the Philharmonia. The final concerts are dominated by Bartók's only opera, Bluebeard's Castle, being toured in a semi-staging d... more info

Guardian Music — In France, he is revered; in Britain he is barely performed. As ENO prepares its first-ever production of Jean-Philippe Rameau, Christian Curnyn applauds the legacy of a revolutionary who has always divided opinionFew composers highlight the dispari... more info

Guardian Music — Hoddinott Hall, CardiffThough it wasn't necessarily the best day to be hoisting the tricolore in Wales, this performance of the complete score of Debussy's Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien, marking the centenary of its premiere, was a rarity to be hail... more info

Guardian Music — Bridgewater Hall, ManchesterThis marked the start of the Hallé's Beethoven cycle, the orchestra's first, surprisingly, for 50 years. It promises to be unusual in several ways. The symphonies are spread out over the entire season, one per concert, ra... more info