The Highs and Lows of 2009

Keith McDonnell (Editor): In order to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything I put together a list of everything I've seen this year which comes to a pretty impressive, although I do say it myself, thirty concerts and twenty-seven performances of twenty-four operas. It's a real privilege to be able to see such a wide range of performances and lucky that out of fifty-seven only one was a total stinker, a couple were pretty disastrous, a handful were OK but the vast majority were very good indeed, and two were simply breathtaking, proving that the eclecticism and vibrancy of music-making in London remains the best in the world. So who fell foul, or should that be fowl, this year? Despite ENO being on a roll this year, this didn't stop them from delivering one of the worst operatic productions it's ever been my misfortune to see – namely Rupert Goold's execrable ‘version' of Turandot. It was amateurish tosh that should never have made it on to the stage of the Coli, and I hope we'll never see it again. I can't say anymore as it makes me too angry to think about it. Christof Loy's Lulu for the Royal opera was a close runner up for the most turgid evening spent in the theatre - its four hours felt more like eight. Both opera houses however delivered two productions that not only were the finest of the year, but could possibly rank as the finest of the decade. David Alden's Peter Grimes for ENO was quite simply the boldest thing the company's done for years. Superbly cast, faultlessly conducted by Ed Gardner and brilliantly staged by Alden it was a prime example of how powerful opera can be when all the elements come together in such perfect alignment. Down the road the Royal Opera delivered a staging of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde that came near to perfection. Loy's production was stunning – the finest staging of a Wagner opera that London has seen since Richard Jones' Ring in the mid-90s. Superbly conducted by Antonio Pappano, the jewel in its crown was Nina Stemme's breathtaking Isolde. I don't think there's ever been a more complete Isolde live, or on record – hers was without question the performance of the year. Other highlights include Bernard Haitink's Mahler 9 at the Proms with the LSO, Yannick Nézet-Séguin's many appearances with the LPO including a reverential and unforgettable Deutsches Requiem, Anja Harteros in Strauss' Four Last Songs with the BRSO, Alice Coote in Das Lied von der Erde whilst everything the indefatigable Sir Charles Mackerras touched turned to gold. Roll on 2010!

Laura Battle (contributor): My musical year was book-ended at Nicholas Hawksmoor's magnificent Christ Church, Spitalfields. It began with the last concert in John Eliot Gardiner's wonderful series of Bach's Christmas Cantatas (plus a Motet and a Brandenburg) back in January. And it concluded with Stile Antico's superlative performance of Tudor music for Advent and Christmas: Tallis' seven-part mass interspersed with miniatures from Byrd. The months in between were mostly occupied by opera and, this being a grand anniversary year, that of a baroque nature. I had dreams of Wayne McGregor's Dido and Aeneas and Acis and Galatea double-bill at Royal Opera offering a sublime synthesis of dance and song but they were not quite fulfilled. There was much to be enjoyed vocally in Dido, especially from homegrown soloists, and I loved the Stourhead-esque arcadia depicted in Acis but the critical elements seemed disjointed – and I could not quite forgive that dreadful wig. Far more accomplished was Glyndebourne Festival's Fairy Queen, directed by Jonathan Kent – in fact this was one of the most lavish and extraordinary things I've ever seen on stage. From the opening bars ("Come, come, come, let us leave the Town…") this piece seemed entirely suited to its wider pastoral setting, and its bawdy humour was in the best of English traditions. Other opera highlights included David Alden's production of Peter Grimes at ENO and Richard Jones' Falstaff at Glyndebourne, both of which used 1940s England – the curtain-twitching, the mean-spiritedness and the proliferation of Brownies – to contrasting effects. The former, coupled with Edward Gardner's conducting, was so brilliant one might almost excuse a couple of Coliseum duds. Certainly Sophie Bevan was the main (only?) reason to catch ENO's staging of Cosi fan tutte and their recent Messiah, and I was fortunate enough to hear her glorious soprano in a concert of Classical Love Songs at Kings Place in September. On the purely instrumental front, I was delighted by Jordi Savall's viola da gamba recital at the Wigmore Hall in May; the premiere of Unsuk Chin's Cello Concerto, performed by Alban Gerhardt at this year's Proms, which confirmed her as one of the most exciting – and under-appreciated – of contemporary composers; and Christian Blackshaw's recent recital of Mozart's late piano sonatas at St George's, Bristol: this pianist may not be in the first flush of youth but I reckon he's the next big thing.

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Adrian Horsewood (contributor): For me, the highlight of my year was seeing Thomas Arne's Artaxerxes in the Linbury Theatre at the Royal Opera House: the sparkling playing of the Classical Opera Company under Ian Page and the spectacular production of Martin Duncan provided a glittering framework for outstanding singing from, in particular, Elizabeth Watts, Caitlin Hulcup and Christopher Ainslie. The same cast has just finished recording the opera for release next year – don't miss it! A late hit this year was James Gilchrist and Anna Tilbrook performing Schubert's Winterreise, in which the intensity of the winter inside Kings Place Hall One more than matched the blizzard outside. Gilchrist was a masterful story-teller, raging and shivering and fully inhabiting the character of the man on a relentless road to oblivion, and Tilbrook matched and supported him every step of the way. The biggest disappointment of the year for me was the Royal Opera production of Berg's Lulu. The music was excellent: Antonio Pappano found melancholy and warmth in equal measure in even the most awkward corners of Berg's score, and Agneta Eichenholz in the title role was superb. However, whereas Lulu occupies the glamorous world of 19th-century Vienna, even as she falls through the social hierarchy, Christof Loy's production was stark and bleak throughout, harshly lit and with wide open spaces standing for all manner of surroundings. My heart longed for the decadent opulence of Viennese salons, the sort of setting that would really have highlighted the depravity of Lulu's life – instead, I found myself strangely unmoved by her story and grisly demise.

Christian Hoskins (contributor): During a generally excellent year in the concert hall, some of the finest performances I heard came from non-professional ensembles, notably a devastating account of Mahler's Ninth Symphony from the Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen and an unforgettable account of Lutoslawski's Concerto for Orchestra from the National Youth Orchestra under Vasily Petrenko. I was also hugely impressed by the performance of Sibelius's Violin Concerto by the young Finnish violinist Elina Vähälä. Over at the Southbank, Esa-Pekka Salonen's series "Vienna: City of Dreams" included superb performances of Schoenberg's Gurrelieder, Zemlinsky's Lyrische Symphonie, and Mahler's Sixth Symphony. Indeed, it was an altogether good year for Mahler, with outstanding accounts of the Second Symphony under Vladimir Jurowski and the Sixth and Tenth Symphonies under Daniel Harding. I was fortunate not to encounter any real turkeys during the year, although I found it difficult to share the widespread acclaim that greeted both Semyon Bychkov's conducting of Lohengrin at the Royal Opera and Mariss Jansons's account of Mahler's Second Symphony with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. In both cases, there was plenty of polish but insufficient fire. Of the various overseas orchestras that came to London during the year, the Vienna Philharmonic left the most memorable impression, demonstrating peerless musicianship in the music of Haydn, Bruckner, Brahms and Richard Strauss under the baton of Zubin Mehta.