• Find the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy just a little too sweet? Then savour Sugar Rum Cherry, from Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s 1960s jazz reworking of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker Suite (1892), where the Dance of the Reed Pipes becomes Toot Toot Tootie Toot and the Waltz of the Flowers is transformed into the Dance of the Floreadores. It’s the latest life-enhancing recording from Chineke! Orchestra (Chineke!/Decca) and guaranteed to put a smile on your face. The fun, recorded live, is conducted by Andrew Grams, with the vibe greatly enhanced by Alec Dankworth (bass), Andy Panayi (saxophone), Noel Langley (trumpet) and Sacha Johnson (drums).
There’s a chance to hear the wonderfully swung Overture when the orchestra appears at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, on 24 November, pairing it with the premiere of Joan Armatrading’s first symphony.
• “Nothing in Mozart is done by the book,” says pianist Angela Hewitt. “There are always surprises along the way.” She proves her point again and again in her luminous second set of the composer’s Piano Sonatas, on the Hyperion label. This selection, from Mozart in his 20s, often requires the virtuosity that he demands in his piano concertos, and explores the possibilities of the new, more powerful fortepianos appearing at the time. The playing is classic Hewitt: incisive, bright, intelligent – and as illuminating as her highly readable sleeve notes.
• The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra just happens to have the largest collection of full-size church bells of any UK orchestra. Percussionist Graham Johns campaigned to raise the cash to have the bells made as “tubular bells never really hit the spot, being thin in sound and unable to project the dark and sombre timbre required. There is nothing like the sound of the real thing.” Judge for yourself this week when the bells ring out in Shostakovich’s mighty 11th Symphony, “The Year 1905”, conducted by Vasily Petrenko. Tuesday, Radio 3, 7.30pm/BBC Sounds.
