Our Choices

The BBC Music Magazine team’s current favourites

Jeremy Pound Acting editor Having recently walked the 25-mile Cheltenham Circular Footpath with a group of friends on a very hot and sunny Sunday, I now have my sights firmly set on the 34 miles of the nearby Gustav Holst Way, named after my home town’s musical hero. Preparation for the walk will, of course, include listening to Holst’s Cotswolds Symphony, evoking the glories of the Gloucestershire countryside, and also his Beni Mora, inspired by the composer’s own lengthy wanderings while on holiday in Algeria. Alice Pearson Cover CD editor

A member of the five Russian composers known as the ‘Mighty Handful’, César Cui (pictured above) is often overlooked as a composer. Unfairly so. He had an affinity for the piano, in particular,

and dedicated his 25 Preludes for Piano to various pianists and friends. In the dim-and-distant past, I tried to learn some of them myself so was glad to find a recording by the Finnish pianist Jouni Somero. Michael Beek Reviews editor One of the highlights in my family’s calendar is The Mountbatten Festival of Music at the Albert

Hall, usually to spot my cousin Charlotte on the clarinet! This year’s concert was streamed, but no less spectacular with 57 Royal Marines musicians and the ever-amazing Corps of Drums. I’m always bowled over by the talent on display.

Freya Parr Digital editor and staff writer Three concerts in two days? Yes please. The Manchester Collective’s immersive exhibition

Dark Days, Luminous Nights in an old MOT garage whet my post-lockdown appetite, before I visited the Manchester Camerata’s astonishing new monastery residence. Their arrangement of Caroline Shaw’s Entr’acte shimmered beautifully in the space. I then hot-footed it back to Bristol’s Arnolfini to hear a concert of new works played by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, then succumbed to exhaustion from all the excitement! Lucy Chaudhuri Online assistant

Anyone who has visited Covent Garden will know that music tends to waft out of the market and tempts you inside to sit and listen, preferably with a large glass of Pinot in hand. I was recently drawn in by an energetic string quartet and, though the wine was sadly absent, I paused to revel in some classical crowd-pleasers, from Vivaldi’s ‘Summer’ to the Game of Thrones theme and Pachelbel’s Canon. Sometimes it pays to play the tourist…