To sing like a byrd

Radiant Dawn Works by Hildegard of Bingen, Tallis, James MacMillan, Owain Park et al Matilda Lloyd (trumpet); The Gesualdo Six/Owain Park Hyperion CDA 68465 69:35 mins This is an ingenious and moving

No matter how famous a composer is in their lifetime, their fate is decided after they die. Will their style fall quickly out of fashion? Was enough of their music published to make it possible to per

For a conductor who eventually achieved global recognition and left a dazzlingly varied discography, Sir Roger Norrington was something of a slow starter. Born in Oxford in 1934, his early musical act

Often admired and adored during their lifetimes, the great composers would, you might think, enjoy similar reverence after death. Once the last rites had been read, surely these great cultural icons w

Samuel Pepys’s self-incriminating diaries

Zaytoun Songs by JS Bach, Monteverdi, Purcell and Sayed Darwish et al Haitham Haidar (tenor), Sylvain Bergeron (archlute), Abdul-Wahab Kayyali (oud) et al Athene ATH 23027 51:44 mins In medieval Spain