Guardian Music — From Beethoven to Bright Eyes: last week was all about pop paying homage to past mastersLast week we called for your favourite pop songs that borrow from classical music. There may be few as weighty or profound as their classical antecedents, but the... more info

Guardian Music — Royal Festival Hall, LondonEven now, more than 50 years after it all began, the period-instrument movement can still produce wonderful, eye-opening surprises. The frontline of its pioneering has shifted ever closer to our own time, and has now reache... more info

Guardian Music — Oliver Knussen's music packs as much incident and expression into mere minutes than some composers manage in a lifetimeAll articles in this seriesOliver Knussen's huge influence as conductor, teacher, programmer, artistic director, and catalyst for s... more info

Guardian Music — Wegener/Hoelscher/Stuttgart SWR RSO/Holliger(Hänssler)Charles Koechlin's list of original works includes well over 200 opus numbers, but he was also a prodigious and skilled orchestrator, regularly transcribing not only his own chamber pieces but mu... more info

Guardian Music — Wigmore Hall, LondonNow in her late 30s, the Czech mezzo Magdalena Kožená's voice is changing, growing in size and power, though losing some of its surface beauty in the process. In this lengthy and varied programme encompassing Mahler, Debussy and... more info

Guardian Music — Crucible, SheffieldIt is interesting to speculate how 20th-century music might have turned out were it not for the invention of the sewing machine. If Paris was the capital of the European avant garde, then the salon hosted by the American heiress Wi... more info

Guardian Music — Hoddinott Hall, CardiffThe Vale of Glamorgan festival may not be on the laser side of cutting edge, yet it manages to extend its audience's aural horizons with an approach that appears benign but is actually quite radical. This performance by the BBC... more info

Guardian Music — Royal Scottish National Orchestra/Denève (Chandos)In this set of nine Debussy orchestral works, Stéphane Denève challenges two preconceptions about his fellow Frenchman: first, that the sound should be a sensuous blur, a musical equivalent to the ... more info

Guardian Music — Wigmore Hall, LondonVéronique Gens was last seen in London in the title role of Steffani's Niobe at Covent Garden in 2010, and it is in the 17th- and 18th-century operatic repertoire, up to and including Mozart, that the French soprano has forged he... more info

Guardian Music — Huppert/Radio France Choir/Gatti/Orchestre National de France(Radio France)Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien – a "mystery" by Gabriele d'Annunzio for which Debussy wrote the incidental music – caused ructions in its day (1911), thanks to the fact th... more info