Somewhere tonight the lights go down. The only question is which room.
Vivaldi under a baroque dome in Vienna. Fado in a Porto cellar with the lights off. A brass band on a paddle steamer out of New Orleans. Reviews of the concerts and live-music nights you can book, with what a seat actually costs.
Most booked right now
Four concerts that end up deciding the rest of the trip.
A Vivaldi programme under Vienna’s baroque dome, fado in a Lisbon cellar, an opera house on Sydney harbour, a jazz band on the Mississippi. What each seat costs, and what the room is like once the lights go down.
01The one everyone booksVivaldi’s Four Seasons Concert in KarlskircheFour Seasons played in period dress under Karlskirche’s oval dome. The acoustic is the reason, not the costumes.
02The Lisbon cellarLive Fado Show with Port Wine at Lisboa em FadoForty seats, a Portuguese guitar and a glass of port. The lights drop and the room goes completely silent.
03The night on the riverNew Orleans Steamboat Natchez Jazz Cruise with Dinner OptionA brass band on the boiler deck of a working steamboat. Dinner below, the Mississippi going past the window.
04The house itselfLa Fenice Opera House Entry Ticket with Audio GuideLa Fenice with an audio guide and no performance to sit through. The auditorium rebuilt exactly as it burned.
Vienna, Lisbon, New Orleans: the cities that fill their rooms every night.
Six cities where live music is not an occasional event but a nightly timetable, and the concert in each one that more people book than any other.
In Vienna the question is never whether there is a concert. It is which room.
Everything in Austria →
Ninety minutes of Mozart or Vivaldi, played more or less the same way across the city. What changes is the room you hear it in, and the room is most of what you are paying for.
- 1Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Concert in Karlskircheseats from $40
- 2Classical Concert in the World-Famous Musikvereinseats from $17
- 3Mozart Concert at the Musikverein – Golden Hallseats from $81
The Musikverein, Golden Hall
Shoebox proportions, a flat floor and the best-known acoustic in Europe. Seats are priced by where you sit rather than what is played, and the cheap ones are behind the gilt caryatids.
St Stephen’s, St Anne’s, St Peter’s
Stone, a long reverb and a chamber ensemble at the crossing. The cheapest way to hear this repertoire properly, and the one that most sounds like the city it was written in.
Schönbrunn, Mirabell, Hohensalzburg
Period dress, a small orchestra and a room built for exactly this. Salzburg’s fortress and Mirabell pair the concert with dinner; Schönbrunn runs its after-hours programmes once the gardens close.
The concerts more people book than anything else.
Every concert review →Across every city on the site, the nights that fill first — and what a seat on each one costs.
1
Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Concert in Karlskirche
Spend 75 minutes inside Vienna’s Karlskirche with Orchestra 1756, a period-instrument ensemble performing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons for string quartet and basso continuo. The program may also include Mozart, Bach, Biber, or another major composer. Choose your seating carefully, dress for the season, and arrive 30 minutes early.
Seats from $40
Read our review →
2
La Fenice Opera House Entry Ticket with Audio Guide
seats from $14
3
Opera House Guided Tour with Entrance Ticket
seats from $33
4
New Orleans Steamboat Natchez Jazz Cruise with Dinner Option
seats from $58
5
Budapest Danube Cruise and Dinner Options, Live Music and Dance
seats from $54
6
3-Course-Dinner Cruise on the Seine with live music
seats from $135
7
Classical Concert in the World-Famous Musikverein
seats from $17
8
Live Fado Show with Glass of Port Wine
seats from $23
Where the concert happens: a church, a palace hall, a dinner table or a boat deck.
The same hour of music costs and feels entirely different depending on where it is played. Four kinds of room, and what a seat in each one starts at.
Fado is not a show. It is a room, a guitar and somebody telling you something.
Lisbon’s Alfama and Porto’s cellars keep forty-seat houses where the lights go out, the Portuguese guitar starts and nobody speaks until it stops. Most tickets include a glass of port. Almost none include a microphone.
Every fado night in Portugal →
New Orleans put a jazz band on a paddle steamer, and nobody has improved on it.
A steam whistle, horns on the boiler deck and the Mississippi doing the rest. Budapest, Paris and Prague run the same idea with a string trio and a dinner service; the Natchez does it with a brass section.
Vivaldi, Mozart and Chopin still sell more seats than anybody alive.
Europe runs a nightly circuit of the three of them: the Four Seasons under a baroque dome, a Mozart programme in period dress, a Chopin recital by candle. These are the most-booked across every classical list on the site.
- 1Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Concert in Karlskircheseats from $40
- 2Classical Concert in the World-Famous Musikvereinseats from $17
- 3Mozart Concert at the Musikverein – Golden Hallseats from $81
What a night of live music actually costs.
Every concert on the site grouped by the price of one seat. A great many of the best rooms in Europe come in under the price of dinner.
Church programmes, fado houses, Chopin recitals and most single tickets in a hall.
- 1Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Concert in Karlskircheseats from $40
- 2La Fenice Opera House Entry Ticket with Audio Guideseats from $14
- 3Opera House Guided Tour with Entrance Ticketseats from $33
Dinner cruises, palace concerts with a meal, and the better seats in an opera house.
- 1New Orleans Steamboat Natchez Jazz Cruise with Dinner Optionseats from $58
- 2Budapest Danube Cruise and Dinner Options, Live Music and Danceseats from $54
- 33-Course-Dinner Cruise on the Seine with live musicseats from $135
Four-course dinners on the Seine, open-air opera with an aperitivo, after-hours in a palace.
- 14-Course Dinner Cruise on Seine River with Live Musicseats from $153
- 2Exclusive Evening at Schönbrunn Palace: After-Hours Audiotour, Dinner, Concertseats from $170
- 3Schönbrunn Palace Evening Tour, Dinner and Concertseats from $167
Three kinds of concert that never travelled.
Orchestras play everywhere. A fado house, Mozart served in period costume and a jazz band on a working paddle steamer only exist where they were invented.
The Fado House
A fado house is a small restaurant that stops being a restaurant at a fixed hour. The service halts, the lights go down to nothing, and a singer works with a Portuguese guitar and a classical guitar behind her. Three sets of three songs is the usual shape, with the room lit again between them. Nobody is amplified, which is why the houses stay small and why they sell out.
- 1Live Fado Show with Glass of Port Wine★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 6,498 reviews
- 2Live Fado Show with Port Wine at Lisboa em Fado★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 5,097 reviews
- 3Fado Show and Wine inside Medieval Walls★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 3,819 reviews
Mozart in Period Dress
Salzburg has been staging Mozart in eighteenth-century costume in the fortress above the town since long before the tourism. The formula runs the same in Vienna: a small orchestra, a room the music was written for, and a dinner service either side of it. The playing is real chamber playing; the wigs are for the room, not the reader.
- 1Mozart Concert at Mirabell Palace★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 3,498 reviews
- 2Best of Mozart Fortress Concert and Dinner★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 1,424 reviews
- 3Prague Castle: Midday Classical Concert at Lobkowicz Palace★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 1,106 reviews
The Steamboat Jazz Band
The Natchez is a genuine steam-driven sternwheeler and the band plays on the deck above the engine, which you can watch working through a window. Two hours upriver and back, a steam calliope on the way out, and the choice between the open deck and a dinner table below. Daytime sailings are cheaper and quieter.
- 1New Orleans Steamboat Natchez Jazz Cruise with Dinner Option★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 7,533 reviews
- 2New Orleans Steamboat Natchez Jazz Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 5,334 reviews
- 3Evening Steamboat Jazz Cruise + Optional Dinner★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 4,548 reviews
Four concerts you cannot leave until you land.
Most live music can be booked from a hotel lobby the same afternoon. These four run on small rooms, short seasons and calendars set months in advance.
- 01Classical Concert in the World-Famous MusikvereinSeats are sold by category, not row, and the good categories go months out. What is left on the night is usually behind a pillar.
- 02La Fenice Opera House Entry Ticket with Audio GuideThe house admits visitors around its own rehearsal and performance schedule, so the open hours move from week to week.
- 03New Orleans Steamboat Natchez Jazz Cruise with Dinner OptionOne boat, a fixed number of sailings a day and a dinner deck with a fixed number of tables. Summer weekends go first.
- 04Christmas & New Year’s Concert in St. Peter’s ChurchThe Advent and New Year programmes run for about six weeks a year and go on sale in the summer.
The concert calendar is not the same in February and July.
Church and chamber programmes run all year and barely notice the season. Palace courtyards and open-air opera exist only once it is warm. Advent and New Year fill six weeks and then vanish. Book the outdoor ones the moment the dates appear; the indoor ones will still be there in the rain.
- 1Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Concert in Karlskircheseats from $40
- 2Classical Concert in the World-Famous Musikvereinseats from $17
- 3Mozart Concert at the Musikverein – Golden Hallseats from $81
By city — wherever you happen to be
Vienna, Salzburg, Prague, Budapest: a week where every evening is already booked.
KrakowThe newest concert reviews.
More of what has just gone up →
Night Tour Of Peking Opera Show / Transfer
Read our review →
Beijing Culture Event: Tea Ceremony, Music Show, Calligraphy
Read our review →
Taste 5 Spanish Wines paired with Live Music
Read our review →
ThreeSixty Jazz Lounge at Millennium Hilton
Read our review →
Bali Phinisi Cruise: Sunset Dinner with Live Music & Buffet
Read our review →
Evening Dinner Cruise with Live Music Chao Phraya
Read our review →
Authentic Fado Show, Dinner and Night Tour
Read our review →
Sunset Dinner Cruise with Show and Live Music
Read our review →
5-Course Romantic Evening Cruise With Live Music
Read our review →