Billy Budd review – Clayton’s Vere is the devastating heart of vivid staging

This revival of Michael Grandage’s atmospheric production of Britten’s opera has numerous fine performances: Thomas Mole and Sam Carl are persuasive as Billy and Claggart, and Allan Clayton’s luminous Vere is a standout

Ubuntu Ensemble review – charged musical snapshots of South Africa’s struggle

Marking the 50th anniversary of the Soweto uprising, a stirring programme culminated with Leon Bosch’s double bass sounding a fragile note of hope

In the Belly of the Beast review – biblical events showcase Sun King’s favoured composer

Spitalfields music festival opened, by chance, with this beautifully performed and dramatic revival of baroque cantatas by Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre

Meriel Dickinson obituary

Mezzo-soprano who helped revive works by Kurt Weill and explored new music in a duo with her brother Peter

Jonathan Kuo: Java Dreams album review – young pianist brings unflashy exuberance to complex works

The Indonesian musician impresses in his debut solo recording of Godowsky’s Java Suite and Stravinsky’s piano arrangement of Petrushka

Brahms’ Last Concert review – OAE and Emelyanychev take audience back to 1897

This recreation of the final concert that the composer attended – only weeks before his death aged 63 – featured his fourth symphony, Dvorak’s Cello Concerto and Haydn’s symphony no 73.

Anna Netrebko review – high camp and bel canto brilliance as star soprano shows she’s still the real deal

In this London recital the Russian singer moved from Rachmaninov to Mozart and Strauss to Charpentier, showcasing in all her voice’s full range of plush, dark beauty and endless legato

Orchestral Works of Mel Bonis album review – full justice is done to her finely crafted and sensuous music

The French composer – a contemporary of Debussy’s – wrote slender but perfectly-formed pieces of beguiling beauty

Making earwax melt and teeth rattle: the project returning music to our bodies

Listeners in the 17th and 18th centuries experienced music in a startlingly vivid – and physical way. A fascinating academic project is wondering if we should let ourselves be much more moved, and get moving. Plus: a prime minister’s musical legacy?

Turandot review – Opera Holland Park celebrate 30 years with Puccini’s grand guignol

A concert performance in an orchestral reduction of Puccini’s colossal final opera was stylishly led by conductor Naomi Woo with José de Eça’s Calaf heading a strong cast

Monochromatic Light (Afterlife) review – Tyshawn Sorey’s meditations yield their mysteries slowly

The Pulitzer-winner’s sprawling amalgam of Morton Feldman and African American spiritual felt meandering, but the GBSR duo, the BBC Singers and Ruth Gibson’s viola were luminous and charismatic

The experience that coloured everything Britten went on to write

Three months after Bergen-Belsen was liberated, Britten and Yehudi Menuhin performed there. Survivor and cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch was ‘transfixed’ – as she told the composer when they played together decades later

‘Some are prayers, some are protests’: 76 musicians reimagine America the Beautiful

The iconic song has been given a diverse new set of versions thanks to pianist Min Kwon’s ambitious musical project

Giulio Cesare review – nightmarish take on Handel has snakes, sadism and a mummy

David Alden’s blackly comic Kafkaesque production has a strong cast whose lively performances were not always matched by the Early Opera Company in the pit

Aldeburgh festival roundup – Tansy Davies and Freya Waley-Cohen premieres, plus blistering Shostakovich

The second weekend boasted brand new music by Davies and Waley-Cohen, the premiere of Alex Ho and Rockey Sun Keting’s Chronicle, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales with Kevin Edusei on exhilarating form