The London Symphony Orchestra has made a shrewd habit of appointing chief conductors who are at ease when communicating music with words as well as hands, and addressing audiences as well as musicians. André Previn in the 1970s and Michael Tilson Thomas in the ’90s both brought the nuts and bolts of classical music to the small screen in peak-time television series that spoke to a sought-after broad audience. A quarter of a century ago, Sir Simon Rattle did the same for 20th-century music, and more recently opened up works such as Beethoven’s Pastoral and Shostakovich’s Fourth in the orchestra’s ‘Half Six Fix’ series of concerts introduced from the podium.

Now comes their successor in post, Sir Antonio Pappano, presenting a trio of symphonies in documentary concerts. Copland’s Third Symphony will be released later in 2025; for now, Marquee TV subscribers have access to films of Mahler’s First and Beethoven’s Seventh, both preceded by half-hour introductions. When reviewing the inaugural concert of Joana Mallwitz with the Konzerthaus Orchestra of Berlin (4/24), I remarked that Mahler’s First has become a signature work for such occasions, where Rattle opened his accounts in Birmingham and Berlin with the Second and Fifth respectively, and Vladimir Jurowski opted for the characteristically left-field choice of Das klagende Lied.

Mahler defines the sound of a modern symphony orchestra and its reach to a (relatively) mass audience, a status seemingly rivalled only by the Diaghilev ballets of Stravinsky. Meanwhile the First Symphony speaks both biographically and musically of fresh starts as well as a Romantic apotheosis of the creator in nature. Pappano himself gets off to a slightly awkward start, ambling across a breezy Hampstead Heath and talking in enthusiastic generalities about ‘the vitality and serenity of nature and the joy and innocence of youth’.

Pappano looks and sounds much more comfortable under rehearsal conditions in LSO St Luke’s, where his commentary on pivotal episodes in the symphony takes for granted nothing beyond the viewer’s curiosity and willingness to engage. Pertinent nuggets of insight – the work’s apparently radical opening gesture and its origin in the finale of Brahms’s Second Symphony, the tonal journey of the first movement – are folded into a narrative of infectious energy which carries through to his conducting.

Pieces to camera from individual musicians bring details to life and the music back to earth in the notes. The camera cuts to their colleagues smiling at one or two of Pappano’s cheesier comments – ‘nothing classical music about that’ – but having seen him once give a two-hour lecture on Puccini’s heroines, sitting at the piano without notes or scores, I can testify to the fund of knowledge that pours out of him and carries an audience along on the wave of his passion. Pappano makes the central point that Mahler’s work is music for conductors, written by the greatest conductor of his generation.

In that context, his conducting of the symphony – of the symphonic repertoire in general, to judge from his London concerts and the orchestral recordings compiled in the recently issued Warner Classics box (10/24) – does not push the interpretative envelope. Its most defining qualities are the Classically motivated energy and lyric flow that underpinned Bruno Walter’s readings of this music. Skipping the first-movement exposition repeat is another old-school touch. He draws from the LSO strings a broader tone than Rattle has done, and maintains a firmer basic pulse. The three-dimensional voicing and articulation of the outer movements nonetheless belong to a 21st-century Mahler style and demonstrate what a virtuoso instrument his predecessor has left him.

The introduction to Beethoven’s Seventh returns us to the heath – how that will work for Copland is anyone’s guess – before Pappano gets down to the Hellenistic proportions and rhythms of the Seventh in rehearsal. Alongside some strained analogies – a drunk uncle, galloping horses – there is more sharp analysis, taking apart the texture with ideas that may even stimulate the imaginations of impeccably informed Gramophone readers, such as the origin of the finale’s melody in one of Beethoven’s Irish folk-song settings, or the bass-heavy orchestration in the composer’s deafness.

Pappano’s own successor at the Santa Cecilia orchestra in Rome is Daniel Harding, who launched his tenure last autumn with not only a Tosca due for release on DG, but also a Verdi Requiem available to view on the Stage+ platform. An audacious gambit, you might think, especially when only one of the soloists is Italian. But the event emanates a powerful sense of occasion, not least due to the venue, the Basilica of St Paul fuori le mura (outside the walls of fourth-century Rome). A ceremonial approach to tempos belongs to the performance as much as the purple birette on the heads of the cardinals in the front row, and to an acoustic which introduces a double thud to the drum thwacks of the ‘Dies irae’.

High-definition camerawork dwells on the columns and gilded mosaics of the basilica in its 19th-century restoration. Assiduous post-production work ensures a sound balance between soloists, choir and orchestra, probably more favourable than the live experience. Perhaps most crucially for the success of any Verdi Requiem, this account features a soprano (Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha) and mezzo (Yulia Matochkina) in fine voice and in tonal harmony with each other, so that the ‘Recordare’ and ‘Agnus Dei’ radiate prayerful serenity.

Alongside them, behind the orchestra, Roberto Tagliavini is a dignified presence on the bass line, more Germont père than Grand Inquisitor. Charles Castronovo completes a satisfyingly integrated line-up, origins notwithstanding, with an elegantly floated ‘Ingemisco’. The performance as a whole treads a fine line between refinement and restraint, rarely throwing caution to the wind save in the contributions of Rangwanasha (singing from memory, and nailing the terror of the ‘Libera me’ as well as a properly pianissimo top B flat), and the electrifying Santa Cecilia chorus.

Klaus Mäkelä will not be taking charge of the Concertgebouw Orchestra until September 2027 but a medici.tv broadcast of Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony presents impressive evidence of their established affinity. Grace and elegance are the keynotes of a reading that takes every available opportunity to mould phrases with the kind of shading and warmth we are more accustomed to expect in Brahms’s Second Symphony (from 1877, a year after the Fifth).

For all that, I don’t find Mäkelä cutting against the grain of the outer movements’ more monumental contrasts; he establishes two basic tempos and sticks to them, while doing a good deal of unobtrusive work in balancing voices to lead the ear in confidence through Bruckner’s contrapuntal thickets. The Scherzo is light on its feet, the country polka dancing in muddier boots but not parodistically so, both episodes recognisably facets of the first movement’s contrasting subjects. The Concertgebouw’s first trumpet phrases with the same agility as flute and oboe, and the coda to the finale succeeds in achieving resplendence and catharsis without yielding to either bombast or fussy manipulations of texture.

Alongside Busoni, Nono and Franz Schmidt, William Tell was one of the less celebrated musical anniversary figures of 2024. Marking 550 years since the legend of his deeds was first recorded, the Opéra de Lausanne brought Tell home (and for the first time, a project masterminded by their new Intendant, Claudio Cortese) with a staging of Rossini’s final opera all the more remarkable given the size of the house, seating less than a thousand. Grand opera (or opéra) this ain’t, and Bruno Ravella’s staging makes a virtue of simplicity and intimacy from the outset, with the curtain going up (after the overture) on a 40-strong chorus, who sing their pious hymn to the dawn before a painted backdrop of Lake Geneva.

The stage is left free for a cast of almost exclusively Francophone singers as fine as we have any right to expect these days, uniformly boasting strong legato and first-rate diction. They are given musical space and a strong pulse from the pit by the exceptionally buoyant and sympathetic conducting of Francesco Lanzillotta. The ballet is the only significant exclusion from a fairly full text, but the 200 minutes race by. As Arnold, Julien Dran holds nothing in reserve, before projecting ‘Asile héréditaire’ with almost undimmed vibrancy. Likewise, Olga Kulchynska bestows both poise and vulnerability on ‘Sombre forêt’. Sébastien Bou takes the title-role with unassuming nobility on stage, belying a ringing, reliably heroic baritone.

Most captivating of all, Elisabeth Boudreault sings Jemmy with plausible youthfulness and a thrilling top register. The countless smaller roles are taken as opportunities to shine, particularly the Fisherman of Sahy Ratia. The broadcast on Arte encodes English subtitles. Tell has also made it to the big screen in a new adaptation led by Jonathan Pryce, but head to Lausanne for the real thing.

The events

Mahler Symphony No 1 Beethoven Symphony No 7 (LSO / Pappano) marquee.tv

Verdi Requiem (S Cecilia Orch / Harding) stage-plus.com

Bruckner Symphony No 5 (RCO / Mäkelä) medici.tv

Rossini Guillaume Tell (Op de Lausanne / Lanzillotta) arte.tv