Dido and Aeneas review – young Welsh talent shines bright in Purcell

Created in just a week with a cast of rising stars and amateur singers, Mid Wales Opera’s production – and its heart-wrenching ending – is a remarkable achievement

National Youth Orchestra/ Chauhan: Collide review – surging energy and remarkable intensity

Young performers brought tremendous quality and personal touches to a concert of works from Wagner to pop star Jacob Collier, under the focused guidance of new principal conductor Alpesh Chauhan

Salome review – righteous fury and dynamic clarity give Regents Opera its head

Directed with gangsterish overtones by Mark Ravenhill, the tempered musical weight of this lean production of the Strauss classic brings greater focus on the roles’ contrasting dramas

Reich: The Sextets album review – Colin Currie celebrates the minimalist master’s joy of six

The fourth Reich album for Currie’s specialist ensemble celebrates the composer’s precise patterns with an enjoyably chilled feel and plenty of dynamic niceties

Mahler Symphonies 1–9 album review – Bychkov’s set earns a place in a starry pantheon

Semyon Bychkov’s Mahler symphony cycle with the Czech Philharmonic is meticulous, imaginative and deserves to be placed alongside the very best sets

‘If Martin Luther hadn’t been a musician, the course of music history might have been very different’

The German cleric who sparked the Reformation - and profoundly changed Europe – saw music as a divine gift. He almost certainly didn’t say ‘Why should the devil have all the best tunes?’, but he should have.

What does the dark side of the moon sound like? Nasa’s sonifications are helping us imagine

As Artemis II returns from the dark side of the moon, Nasa’s transformations of electromagnetic energy into sound remind us that everything is vibrating – even while the astronauts are listening to Chappell Roan

Legendary Disney composer Alan Menken on winning Oscars, Razzies and his ‘filthy’ rock musical

The Whole New World composer who soundtracked millennial childhoods and won eight Oscars looks back on a stellar career

Shostakovich: Symphonies No 2 and 5 album review – early experiment meets mature power

Conductor John Storgårds pairs Shostakovich’s radical youthful 2nd symphony with the more assured 5th, in performances that emphasise clarity over drama

Messiah album review – Whelan takes Handel’s oratorio back to its beginnings

Conductor Peter Whelan leads a finely judged and agile period-instrument performance with only 13 singers.

Martha Argerich and Dong-Hyek Lim review – legendary pianist and mentee create musical magic

This thrilling and idiosyncratic concert moved from Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos to Rachmaninov, Ravel and Schumann

Why Bach’s music is indestructible, whether on the mandolin, modern piano – or soundtracking murder

The German composer dominates the classical charts and concert platforms, especially at this time of year. Here’s to his life-giving zombie music!

The twilight zone: Nocturnes, from piano to perfume and Russia to Richter

The 19th-century composer John Field was the first to name his gentle and delicate piano pieces ‘nocturnes’. The word – and the genre of ‘sleep music’ it presaged – is ubiquitous today

‘After one gig, someone stole my car with my dole money in it’: Morcheeba on how they made The Sea

‘The string section we got in thought I was the tea boy. When I asked for a psychedelic improvisation like A Day in the Life, they went: “Why is this guy telling us what to play?”’

The nightmarish sounds of Squid Game composer Jung Jae-il: ‘Having no identity very much defines my identity’

Korean composer behind Netflix’s most-watched series on the calculated imperfection in his scores