Our Choices

The BBC Music Magazine team’s current favourites

Charlotte Smith Editor

This month I attended an advance screening of Tár, the new film directed by Todd Field about the fictional composer-conductor Lydia Tár, starring Cate Blanchett. A rare opportunity for a Hollywood actor to compellingly portray the life of a musician, the film is also a fascinating portrait of an abuse of power. American conductor John Mauceri worked closely with Field as musical supervisor on a soundtrack showcasing everything from Mahler to Hildur Guðnadóttir.

Jeremy Pound Deputy editor

When sub-editing a feature about a composer, I tend to listen to examples of their music to help immerse me in the task. Having done just this with last issue’s Composer of the Month on Carwithen, I am now besotted with her Piano Concerto. In the second movement, she conjures up a dreamy soundworld that reminds me greatly of Ravel, with a bit of Khachaturian and Respighi in their more exotic moods.

Michael Beek Reviews editor I ventured to deepest Somerset for a concert by The Band of HM Royal Marines recently. The talented musicians, in their first public concert since performing duties at Queen Elizabeth II’S funeral, lifted our spirits (and almost the roof) at St Andrew’s Church in Wiveliscombe. The slightly revised programme included a lovely piece called Rest by Rossano Galante plus the Mendelssohn funeral march they had played so memorably the week before.

Steve Wright Content producer

There’s a wonderful Martinu˚ disc from Christopher Hogwood and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra which includes the delightfully oddball Revue de Cuisine. A suite of ballet music, the work follows the trials and tribulations of various bickering kitchen utensils – so, for example, Dishcloth starts flirting with Lid, and promptly gets challenged to a duel by Broom. Martinu˚ renders these bizarre domestic dramas with his usual colourful palette and bracing, syncopated rhythms.

Alice Pearson Cover CD editor

I have come across a sumptuous recording of Sviridov’s choral works by the Moscow New Choir, directed by Elena Rastvorova. Little known outside of Russia, Sviridov’s music deserves to be plucked from obscurity in the West. Firmly rooted in Romanticism with powerful melodies and strong folk flavours, it is often described as an expression of the Russian soul.