Our Choices The BBC Music Magazine team’s current favourites

Charlotte Smith Editor

Interviewing Patricia Kopatchinskaja about the folk-infused repertoire on her Chamber Awardwinning album Plaisirs Illuminés this month put me in the mood for Bartók. The composer’s

Viola Concerto is, of course, wonderful – but it’s the Second Violin Concerto, with its heartbreaking Andante tranquillo, that stops me in my tracks every time. My favourite recording still has to be James Ehnes’s rendition with the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Gianandrea Noseda – warm and human, yet somehow broken.

Jeremy Pound Deputy editor

Researching and writing a feature on Holst a couple of issues ago merely served to remind me of just how much of his music I’ve yet to get properly acquainted with. Doing so since has proved a real joy, thanks not least to discs such as Sir Andrew Davis and the BBC Philharmonic’s 2018 recording of works including ‘The

Cotswolds’ Symphony, A Moorside Suite and Indra. While none of these are likely to challenge the hegemony of The Planets, they are full of colour, charm and invention.

Michael Beek Reviews editor

I moved house recently and so had to box up my CD collection for a few weeks. Finally unpacking them was like rediscovering lost treasures – I know it’s material, but some of them mean such a lot. I enjoyed dusting off the Hans Zimmer (right) titles, especially after his muchdeserved Oscar for Dune. His 1994 score for Beyond Rangoon was first choice once the player was unpacked.

Alice Pearson Cover CD editor

A news feature about the desperate attempt by a Ukrainian museum to save priceless art treasures from the destruction of war reminded me of the composer George Butterworth, who lost his life in the First World War – the promise of his early works suggests that he would have left many musical treasures had he lived longer. His Two English Idylls are beautifully crafted evocations, heard at their best on the archive recording of the LPO conducted by Sir Adrian Boult.

Rebecca Franks Freelance contributor One piece of music I didn’t know I needed in my life until recently was a contemporary classical reworking for voice and marimba of Abba’s Lay All Your Love on Me. But composer-singer Caroline Shaw and Sō Percussion’s take on the Swedish pop classic is an addictive listen that’s gone straight on to my favourites’ playlist. They strip the music right back and turn it into a radically intense modern-day chorale.