Frances Wilson

Focusing on two chamber works composed in straitened circumstances during the Second World War, this The Rest is Noise concert featured top performers Renaud and Gautier Capuçon, Denis Kozhukhin and Jörg Widmann. This was chamber music of the highest order.

The sparkling virtuosity of Alexander Gavrylyuk was given an unexpected opportunity to make its debut at Wigmore Hall when Cédric Tiberghien withdrew at short notice. The resulting recital – Mozart, Rachmaninov and Mussorgsky – was a masterful display of pianism.

As concerts go, this was definitely the most unusual, challenging and amusing of musical experiences, as one would expect from one of the most distinctive composers working today: Stephen Montague's 70th birthday happening was an event to remember.

Picasso's creative breakthrough in 1901 Paris is charted in an intelligent and focused exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery. It demonstrates how the artist developed his personal style and artistic identity by taking on and transforming the styles and subjects of major modern artists of the age, including Van Gogh, Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec.

The Royal Academy of Arts' latest blockbuster exhibition features Edouard Manet's realistic portraits, exploring his modern approach to the depiction of his subjects.

Leighton House is a fine example of a Victorian artist's studio as well as a testament to Frederic, Lord Leighton's private collection of fine and decorative arts. Here you will find the house's opulent two-storey Arab Hall, art collection, and Victorian memorabilia.

Displaying his fascination with new technology and his inspirations both modern and ancient, the late Richard Hamilton has left a beautiful and startling legacy in an exquisitely executed visual study of the fundamentals of the artist’s craft.

It was fitting that critically acclaimed Japanese pianist Noriko Ogawa should open her Wigmore Hall lunchtime concert with a work by one of her countrymen: Rain Tree Sketch II by Toru Takemitsu. Also featuring numerous Études by Debussy, this was a performance with obvious humour, warmth and charm.

In a Proms Chamber Music concert at Cadogan Hall to celebrate the sesquicentennial anniversary of Debussy’s birth, pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard demonstrated not only his tremendous technical facility, but also his artistry and profound understanding of his compatriot’s oeuvre.

Who else but Sir Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington and hero of the Peninsular Wars and the Battle of Waterloo, would live at such a grand address as 'Number One, London'? Apsley House offers a wonderful illustrated slice of early nineteenth-century history, and is a must for those with an interest in this period of British military and social history.