Cherubini's D major symphony has big gestures and a few half-tunes, but nothing nutritious for the audience mind that Beethoven was awakening.

With Australia in flames, Italian cities choked by smog and parts of Canada enjoying an unseasonal thaw, I’m listening to Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Pastoral Symphony, a lament for pre-1914 rhythms of life.

Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony are totally convincing in this recording of Shostakovich: 13th Symphony ‘Babi Yar’.

No happier way to start a year than Francis Poulenc, few grimmer than Charles Koechlin; Poulenc captivates, but tepid Koechlin is the sort of thing the BBC used to play to fill time up to the news.

Music by the young Dmitri Shostakovich, a dazzling talent strutting his stuff in the first decade of a revolution when all seemed possible and available — jobs for all, free meals at work, free love.

British pianists Peter Hill and Benjamin Frith reveal the genius in some of Beethoven's lesser known works on this Delphian release.

Norman Lebrecht reviews three new recordings of the work of Polish-born Soviet composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg.

The Purcell Singers latest release is a compelling spiritual journey through British and American choral works.

Every composer suppressed by Stalin deserves to be remembered. Just how much musical attention they warrant is another matter; Alexander Veprik is a case in point.

Something’s gone awry with Warner’s scheduling when they issue three violin-piano recitals at the same time (except one of them’s actually on cello). Something’s also skewed with the repertoire selection.