Bach and Glass make a pair of interesting musical bedfellows.

Harding and his band tackle Mahler from the back end first.

This Appl didn’t fall very far from Fischer-Dieskau’s tree.

Ancient meets modern in Stutzmann’s judicious treatment.

Jacqui Dark and Kanen Breen offer a down and dirty good time in their new cabaret show.

Perhaps undervalued outside the UK, Colin Matthews holds an important position as a composer and pedagogue at home and this excellent disc on NMC, the label devoted to British composition that he launched, provides a triptych of beautifully constructed works composed between 1998 and 2010. A musical amenuensis of sorts to the Britten estate, Matthews has continued to create within a modernist framework works of a grave yet touching beauty which bring togeher French harmonies with a soundworld somewhat similar to that of the late Hans Werner Henze. And such is the depth of ideas encountered here, that with these three works, we have a perfect introduction to this composer as well as a means of celebrating his 70th birthday. All three works are commissions for important musicians and orchestras  – the Cello Concerto for Rostropovich, the Violin Concerto is heard in a BBC broadcast from the Proms, whilst Cortege is taken up by the Concertgebouw and Riccardo Chailly. Of the three works encountered here, it is the two movement Violin Concerto, which is also the finest and the most most virtuosic. Cortege is similarly of darkened textures and colours though not necessarily funereal in nature. Whilst it would be…

Antony Gray is a London-based pianist who has gained praise for his recordings of Poulenc, Bach, Brahms and Goossens and one can see his skill with these composers fertilising this new disc devoted to Schultz’s pianistic output. In the Adelaide-born composer’s music there is a sense of space, which is entirely appropriate to the vast Australian landscape; and unlike many earlier composers, Schultz is is content to write in a more neo-tonal manner without resorting to dissonance or mimicry of birdcry. Even in his recent Interludes (2015), there is a sense of late-Romantic intensity. And though Schultz does not regard himself as much of a pianist, there is much here – a sparseness of creative landscape, which defines modern notions of Australia. His music is more melodic than atonal, and yet almost naively deductive in its sense of logic, place and space. Here is music that is haunting and inward, searching for a sense of landscape if not comprehension. Schultz’s literary influences are disparate – from the 10th-century Japanese Pillow Book to Inventions from his own opera The Children’s Bach after Helen Garner’s touching novella. His counterpoint is all so appropriate, making even more sense of the Bach adopted by…

This box set truly is a must have set for all 20th-century music fans.

A hybrid of poetry, lecture and literary fancy makes for a highly melodramatic evening

Fischer and Grand Baton is an all too rare example of true artistic collaboration.

★★★★☆ Digging the dirt on Kurt with Bert (and others).

★★★★½ Fine English chanteuse takes aim with political and socially critical songs.