Record Review Podcast

David Owen Norris compares recordings of Holst's The Planets and makes a personal recommendation

In an interview originally broadcast in April 2014 Andrew talks to soprano Emma Kirkby and violinist Catherine Mackintosh about the recording they made of Handel's oratorio Messiah with conductor Christopher Hogwood back in 1980. This iconic recording changed the way we hear this staple of choral societies up and down the land; and the cast of musicians now reads like a Who's Who from the world of Historically Informed Performance Practice.

Anna Picard recommends a version from the available recordings of Handel's opera Orlando

Andrew talks to the conductor Kristjan Järvi about the reinvention of core repertoire, the juxtaposing influences in his formative years, and his new collaborative projects

Each week Andrew recommends recordings of music by a Proms composer whose music deserves to be heard more often. The music of this week's Proms Composer, Harrison Birtwistle, is as uncompromising as the man himself. 80 years old this year, he has written widely in many genres, and is an icon of contemporary music in the UK and

Andrew talks to American conductor Andrew Litton about recording Prokofiev and Wagner in Bergen, as well as a recent labour of love involving his hero, jazz pianist Oscar Peterson

Andrew talks to Simon Heighes about a box set of operas by Gluck from Decca. In his anniversary year, Gluck is being reassessed and we are finding out that he was more than just the instigator of operatic reforms and the composer of Orfeo ed Euridice and the 2 Iphegenia operas. His career was in fact multi-faceted and, coming between Handel and Mozart, his style is a tantalising mix of late Baroque and early Classical.

Andrew talks to soprano Jessye Norman about her new memoir, the extraordinary recording career, memories of finding herself working in a divided Berlin having grown up in the segregated American south, a bizarre encounter during a song recital, the joy of performing Tippett's A Child of our Time with its innovative use of spirituals and her deeply held conviction that the arts are an essential part of life which touch the depths of the human spirit.

Each week Andrew recommends recordings of music by a Proms composer. This week's Proms Composer, is the American John Adams who is strongly influenced by minimalism. Known equally for his orchestral works such as Short Ride in a Fast Machine, chamber music such as Shaker Loops, vocal music like The Wound-Dresser and his operas which include Nixon in China, The Death of Klinghoffer and Doctor Atomic.

Each week Andrew recommends recordings of music by a Proms composer whose music deserves to be heard more often. This week's Proms Composer, Zoltán Kodály, was a Hungarian composer and ethnomusicologist. In the early 1900s he visited remote villages to notate the folk music of Hungary and the Hungarian-inhabited areas of Slovakia and Romania. Kodaly and his friend Bela Bartok recorded the songs on phonograph cylinders. His work is an attractive mixture of late-romantic, impressionistic and modernist musical styles inflected with folk idioms. His most famous pieces include the Háry János Overture, Dances of Marosszék, Dances of Galánta and Psalmus Hungaricus.