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 — Barbican, LondonThere are two kinds of great pianist: those who make you aware of their interpretative choices, where part of what you listen to is the brilliance of their thinking; and those where you forget that any interpretation is involved. Murr... more info

Guardian Music — McCawley/City of London Choir/RPO/Davan Wetton(Naxos)Beethoven's cantata Der Glorreiche Augenblick was first performed in 1814, and the "glorious moment" it celebrates was the opening of the Congress of Vienna, the aim of which was to redraw the map ... more info

Guardian Music — How do conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Simon Rattle and Valery Gergiev work? Tom Service drops in on leading orchestras to find outThe first concert of orchestral music I ever went to – I was seven – introduced me to Mozart, his 29th Symphony ... more info

Guardian Music — The great populariser of early music was a man of scarcely believable energy and productivityWhat's happened to early music? Now we've got conductors such as Nikolaus Harnoncourt and John Eliot Gardiner conducting the Berlin and Vienna philharmonics,... more info

Guardian Music — HJ Lim(EMI, eight CDs)Earlier in the year EMI announced their exclusive contract with the 24-year-old Korean pianist HJ Lim with the release of a two-disc set of Beethoven sonatas that included the Hammerklavier Op 106 and Les Adieux Op 81a. Now, wit... more info

Guardian Music — Spectacular remote settings, world-class performers – we round up Scotland's best summer classical music festivalsSt Magnus, Orkney, 21-30 JuneThe festival Mostly takes place around Kirkwall, on Orkney's "mainland", including St Magnus Cathedral an... more info

Guardian Music — Bridgewater Hall, ManchesterAlpha and omega, chalk and cheese, Tom and Jerry – call them what you will, it is hard to find two pieces of music at further extremes than the ninth symphonies of Beethoven and Shostakovich. Yet both are revolutionar... more info

Guardian Music — St George's, BristolThe Gould Piano Trio's Beethoven series, celebrating their 20th anniversary year, reached its culmination with this concert of the composer's first and last works in the medium. The great arc from his Op 1 No 1 in E flat, to Op 97... more info

ContactMusic — Soccer star David Beckham has turned classical musician for a new advertising campaign - he plays Beethovens Ode to Joy by kicking footballs at a wall of drums Olympics ambassador Beckham has teamed up with bosses at electronics company Samsung the o... more info