• Every generation needs inspiring role models for entering the world of classical music. Sheku Kanneh-Mason, cellist winner of BBC Young Musician 2016, is emerging as the player of the moment. Will he be as electrifying for the present time of participation and diversity as Jacqueline du Pré was in the past? Why not: his debut disc, Inspiration (Decca), skilfully combines a blistering live performance of Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto with a range of alluring miniatures.
Starting with something unusual, Evening of Roses by Yosef Hadar, it reaches the familiar with Saint-Saëns’ The Swan (in a very smoochy version). Kanneh-Mason sounds best in a wonderful Offenbach track, and in a touching solo self-arranged version of Bob Marley’s No Woman, No Cry. As virtuoso he hits the heights in the cadenza to the Shostakovich concerto, supported by the terrific City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (superb horn solos) under Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla.
• At the other end of the popular spectrum, two releases of the French baroque music that have been among the great rediscoveries of our time. Christophe Rousset and Les Talens Lyriques revive Lully’s fine opera Alceste of 1674 (Aparte), while on a smaller scale the tenor Reinoud Van Mechelen sings Clérambault’s Cantates Françaises (Alpha Classics) with delicious grace and skill.
• The extensive archive of Radio 3’s Private Passions on iPlayer is a stimulating collection. Last week, Alistair Spalding, innovative artistic director of Sadler’s Wells in London, talked with host Michael Berkeley about how music has inspired new dance, and how dance is one of the best ways for audiences to encounter contemporary music.
