In Brief: Christmas Concert Edition

Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to good things in Blogville and Beyond.

• Watch Hilary Hahn play Mendelssohn's violin concerto with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, plus Strauss's Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche and Carl Nielsen's sixth symphony. [ARTE Live Web]


• Hear pianist Alexandre Tharaud play Haydn, Mozart, and Bach concertos with Les Violons du Roy, from the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. [France Musique]


• If you missed the performance of Don Giovanni that opened the season at La Scala, you can listen to the starry cast including Peter Mattei, Bryn Terfel, Anna Netrebko, Giuseppe Filianoti, and Barbara Frittoli. [France Musique]


• Coming soon, online video of the production of Verdi's La Forza del Destino, from the Opéra national de Paris, with Violeta Urmana and Marcelo Àlvarez, conducted by Philippe Jordan and directed by Jean-Claude Auvray. [Medici.tv]


• From the Salle Pleyel, hear Hervé Niquet conduct the chorus and instrumentalists of Le Concert Spirituel in a concert performance of Henry Purcell's Fairy Queen. [France Musique]


• Mezzo-soprano Sophie Koch and pianist François-Frédéric Guy perform a recital of songs by Liszt and Wagner, in the Amphithéâtre de l’Opéra Bastille in Paris. [France Musique]


• Look at these photos of the prehistoric paintings in the cave of Chauvet. [Le Point]


• Pianist Simon Trpčeski plays a recital in the Auditorium du Louvre, with music by Chopin, Liszt, and a new work by Pande Shahov. [France Musique]


• You can watch pianist Lise de la Salle in recital at the Auditorium du Louvre, too, playing a Liszt program. [Medici.tv]


• Jukka-Pekka Saraste conducts the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France in Britten's Les Illuminations, with soprano Christine Schäfer, and Shostakovich's sixth symphony. [France Musique]


• The Villa Medicis in Rome is boasting a restored ceiling fresco, in the so-called Stanza degli uccelli in the 16th-century pavilion in the garden, painted by Jacopo Zucci and assistants in 1576 and 1577. [L'Express]


• The Ensemble Orchestral de Paris pairs Mozart with George Benjamin's A Mind of Winter, in the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. [France Musique]


• From the Cité de la Musique, the Ensemble Intercontemporain performs a program of very recent music: Mauricio Kagel's In der Matratzengruft, from 2008, and the world premiere of Hèctor Parra's Caressant l'horizon. [France Musique]


• Watch Alan Gilbert conduct the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France in Liszt's Tasso lamento e trionfo and Totentanz, with pianist Barry Douglas, and selections from Wagner's Ring cycle. If the video is not working yet, you can also listen to the audio online. [Cité de la Musique Live]


• From the Auditorium of the Musée d'Orsay, pianists Dezsö Ranki and Edit Klukon play music of Liszt and Barnabás Dukay. [France Musique]