Polish strings
Grazyna Bacewicz: Symphonies 3 &4; Concerto for string orchestra (both on Chandos)
Music for a disintegrating world
Valentin Silvestrov: Widmung, Postludium (Naxos)
Making art of the Holocaust
As dramatic opera, The Passenger inhabits a grey zone of guard–prisoner relations
Music for a warm bath
Bloch, Bruch, Dohnanyi (Claves)
The glorious Ninth
Relive the moments when music changed forever
Elgar’s excellence
Elgar: Symphonies (Halle/Oehms)
In praise of the viola
Cantabile: Anthems for viola (Delphian)
An array of civilised music
Walter Kaufmann: 3rd piano concerto, 3rd symphony &c. (CPO)
Musical no man’s lands
Two violin concertos fail to inspire
A great conductor leaves the stage
No conductor from China or Japan ever commanded world orchestras before Seiji Ozawa, and none has since matched his impact