The Latest Breaking News from Beethoven

After cuts by Arts Council England and the BBC, Simon Rattle says UK opera houses and orchestras have never faced greater peril. How can they fight back? Top musicians outline their battle plans

Northern Rail says it has been playing composers such as Bach and Beethoven in railway stations and has already seen a dramatic fall in anti-social behaviour

The Director of the Canberra International Music Festival fizzes with enthusiasm

It was also a record year for film music.

Gianandrea Noseda and the LSO go to the edge with Shostakovich. Plus, an operatic trip to Wonderland for deaf and hard-of-hearing children

Outstanding new composers and genre-hopping experiments are not the sole reasons the Iceland Symphony Orchestra’s UK tour is so anticipated – the country itself is a seed bed for musical talent

Uchida’s playing of Beethoven’s last three piano sonatas avoided bombast but neither did she shirk from the climactic moments

Apple's new bespoke classical music app features Hi-Res Lossless audio, Dolby Atmos and a bulging catalogue of over five million works.

Watch them before they're taken down

A heckler heightened the atmosphere before a precise performance of Bach’s testing mass; and care home residents enjoyed a thrilling rendition of Beethoven’s Fifth in a truly resonant setting

A flatulent barrister who tried to sue the Crown Prosecution Service has won £135,000 after his request to work from home was denied. An employment tribunal was told that Tarique Mohammed’s farts were caused by medication and therefore asking him to stop breaking wind violated his dignity. The tribunal found…