• Gustav Holst liked to speak of his seven-movement orchestral suite The Planets, Op 32 (1918) as a series of musical “mood pictures”. Whatever his theories about the individual planets – and as a student of astrology he had a few – the variety of musical styles in his work is remarkable. This is demonstrated in a superb new recording by the choir and orchestra of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (BR Klassik), conducted by Daniel Harding. From the menace of Mars, bringer of war, to the serene beauty of Venus, the mix of jollity and nobility in Jupiter, the unworldly sadness of Saturn and the pianissimo dissonance of Neptune, this is a revelatory performance.
Horns and woodwind are expressive, strings lithe, the layers of wordless high voices perfectly blended. Harding was announced as Antonio Pappano’s successor as music director of Rome’s Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia after this disc was pressed. Lucky Italians. The British conductor, heard more abroad than at home, is a force to reckon with. If you thought you knew this most popular work inside out, give the Bavarians’ account a listen.
• Broken Branches (Pentatone), by the guitarist Sean Shibe and tenor Karim Sulayman, is an eclectic album, built on friendship, which explores the performers’ own sense of identity, memory, diaspora, often in their own arrangements. Born in Edinburgh of English and Japanese heritage, Shibe’s starry career is characterised by virtuosity and curiosity, in repertoire and guitar styles.
Sulayman, a Lebanese-American singer, light-voiced and flexible, brings intensity to traditional Sephardic song, and new inflections to John Dowland, Claudio Monteverdi and Benjamin Britten (his six songs from the Chinese). El Helwa Di, by the Egyptian composer-singer Sayed Darwish (1892-1923), ripples with ornament and atmosphere. Two late 20th-century greats, Toru Takemitsu (1930-96) and Jonathan Harvey (1939-2012), are given welcome attention in an unusual, haunting set.
• Composer-conductor Ryan Wigglesworth has made his own sequence of music from Wagner’s Götterdämmerung. It will be performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra as part of Afternoon Concert, Radio 3, Tuesday, 3pm and BBC Sounds.
