Guides
Everything we wish someone had told us about going to performances
From years of sitting in concert halls, here is what to expect when enjoying a performance by one of the UK's many excellent ensembles. Every guide is checked against the live diary, so the performances it points you at are ones you can actually book.
Updated weeklyThis week's highlightsOur current pick of performances worth your evening — dates, venues, prices and booking links.See this week →Getting started
What to expect the first few times — dress, timings, applause and how to read a programme.
Your first classical concert: a complete, no-jargon guide
What actually happens, from arriving at the hall to the last bow — and why none of it is as intimidating as it looks.
Read the guide →What to wear to a classical concert (and the few places it matters)
Almost nowhere has a dress code any more — with a handful of famous exceptions worth knowing about.
Read the guide →When to clap: the only applause guide you need
Between movements, after arias, during a curtain call — the simple rules, and why nobody minds as much as you fear.
Read the guide →How long does a concert last? Runtimes, intervals and getting home
Symphony concerts, operas, ballets and lunchtime recitals all run to different clocks. Here is what to plan for.
Read the guide →How to read a concert programme (and a listing)
Opus numbers, K numbers, "Op. 67", conductors versus soloists — decoding the shorthand so a listing tells you something useful.
Read the guide →
City guides
Where to hear live classical music city by city: the halls, the resident ensembles and how to book.
Classical music in London: halls, orchestras and how to book
Five world-class orchestras, two opera houses and more concerts in a week than most countries manage in a month.
Read the guide →Classical music in Manchester: the Hallé, the Bridgewater and beyond
A city with two full symphony orchestras, a superb hall and a genuinely affordable habit.
Read the guide →Classical music in Birmingham: Symphony Hall and the CBSO
One of Europe's best-sounding concert halls, and the orchestra that made it famous.
Read the guide →Classical music in Glasgow: the RSNO, Scottish Opera and City Halls
Scotland's busiest classical city, with two orchestras, a national opera company and famously cheap seats.
Read the guide →Classical music in Edinburgh: the Usher Hall, the Festival and the rest of the year
Everyone knows what happens in August. The other eleven months are the locals' secret.
Read the guide →Classical music in Liverpool: the Phil, the Hall and 185 years of habit
Britain's oldest surviving professional orchestra, in one of its most likeable halls.
Read the guide →Classical music in Leeds: Opera North, the Grand and the Howard Assembly Room
A city whose opera company is also its orchestra — and one of the best small rooms in the country.
Read the guide →Classical music in Cardiff: WNO, the BBC NOW and Hoddinott Hall
A national opera company, a national orchestra and a purpose-built broadcasting hall, all within a short walk.
Read the guide →Classical music in Belfast: the Ulster Orchestra and the Ulster Hall
A city with its own professional orchestra, two fine halls and short queues.
Read the guide →
Composer guides
The composers UK audiences meet most often, the works worth hearing first, and where to hear them.
Mozart: where to start, and what to hear live
Six hundred works, an unfair number of them perfect. A route in, and what changes when you hear them in a hall.
Read the guide →Beethoven: the nine symphonies and everything around them
The composer every orchestra returns to. What to hear first, and why the late works are worth the wait.
Read the guide →Mahler: how to survive — and love — your first symphony
Enormous, exhausting, overwhelming, and the most reliably transformative live experience in the repertoire.
Read the guide →Tchaikovsky: the ballets, the symphonies and the concertos
The most familiar music in the repertoire, and far stranger and sadder than its reputation suggests.
Read the guide →Verdi: an opera beginner's route in
Twenty-eight operas, a handful of them the most watchable nights in the theatre. Start here.
Read the guide →Britten: Britain's greatest twentieth-century composer
Sea, guilt, childhood and outsiders — and choral music that British choirs sing better than anyone.
Read the guide →Vaughan Williams: more than The Lark Ascending
Nine symphonies, a folk-song obsession and the two most-played English works of the last century.
Read the guide →Shostakovich: the symphonies, the quartets and the double life
Fifteen symphonies written under surveillance — savage, sardonic, and impossible to hear passively.
Read the guide →Elgar: beyond Nimrod and the Pomp
The cello concerto, the symphonies and the oratorios — a composer far stranger and sadder than his reputation.
Read the guide →Walton: swagger, film scores and Belshazzar
Jazz-age wit, coronation grandeur and one of the loudest choral works in the repertoire.
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Venue guides
The character, acoustics and practicalities of the country's most-used concert halls and opera houses.
The Royal Albert Hall: a first-timer's guide
Thousands of seats, an oval plan and the Proms — how to choose where to sit in Britain's most famous room.
Read the guide →The Barbican: how to hear the LSO at its best
A clear, close, unforgiving hall inside a concrete labyrinth. Both parts are worth understanding.
Read the guide →The Royal Festival Hall: the South Bank's big room
Post-war optimism in concrete and wood, and one of London's most reliably comfortable evenings.
Read the guide →Symphony Hall, Birmingham: Britain's best acoustic?
A shoebox with a reverberation chamber, and a very strong claim to the finest sound in the country.
Read the guide →The Bridgewater Hall: Manchester's hall on springs
Two and a half thousand seats on giant isolation bearings, and a warmer sound than its glass exterior suggests.
Read the guide →The Royal Opera House: how to go without spending a fortune
Covent Garden has the reputation and the prices — and also some of the best-value seats in London if you know where to look.
Read the guide →
Ready to book something?
The diary carries every upcoming performance we track — filter by city, date, ensemble or type, then book directly with the venue.
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