The 36th Dresden Music Festival has a big title and even bigger ambitions. Empire is a theme which Artistic Director Jan Vogler hopes will embrace not just the cultural achievements of the British Empire but the broader implications of the word. The Brits are coming for sure with a range of music stretching from the Renaissance via Purcell to Elgar and Britten. The Americans are coming, too, with the New York Philharmonic “in residence” under their Chief Conductor Alan Gilbert. And 2013’s big anniversaries - Wagner, Verdi, Lutosławski, Britten - will be celebrated in style.

Another session of Peter, Joe, some amazing records and some musing on their whys and wherefores - originally broadcast live on NTS Radio out of London's fashionable Dalston.

Quite possibly because the sun was shining, even if it wasn’t actually warm as such, this show presented by Joe Muggs and Peter Culshaw got its groove on. There was shuffling about the NTS studio, strangers started dancing. The featured albums, by which we mean more than one track were played were the new one from Bachar Mar Khalifé, who is clearly a major talent, the debut from Los Chinches, a Peruvian Amazon surf band, who started and closed the show and an irresistible new compilation of Latin Psychedelia.

Matthew Collings was snowed in in Norfolk, so was sadly unable to join us, but the weather didn’t defeat The Arts Desk/London Art Fair debate. The Art Newspaper’s market expert Melanie Girles and TAD critic Mark Hudson rose to the challenge, while I did my best to steer the lively conversation. 

Under discussion was the question of whether art as commodity had finally taken over from art as art, as Robert Hughes had predicted over 30 years ago, and whether crazy prices at auction ultimately changes our viewing experience.

Welcome to the latest edition of The Arts Desk Radio Show, originally broadcast live from London's glamorous Dalston last Tuesday on NTS Live. Once again Joe found himself flying solo as Peter was off on his travels – although this time, rather than visiting his usual far-flung destinations he was on the road, driving Malcolm McLaren's Mercedes back from Paris.

The Arts Desk has quietly been testing the waters in the world of live radio, thanks to the kind people at NTS Live who invited Joe and Peter to do a fortnightly show for them. Having got into the swing of things, they're ready to open up the archives of the show starting with this week's episode. Here, Joe was flying solo, as Peter was - as is his wont - out on a research trip in more exotic climes. So there's less talk and more music, but what music it is!

The Baltic Youth Philharmonic (founded in 2008) is part of a much larger and bolder enterprise embracing the 10 nation states bordering the Baltic Sea. At a time of financial duress when governments are downgrading culture as a low priority the BYP is forging ahead with privately funded and ever more ambitious schemes whose aim is to celebrate the national identity and cultural diversity of its members as surely as it seeks to develop unity between them.

The vibrant Elias String Quartet are 14 years young, well established, and well respected on the international scene. Former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists and recipients of a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award in 2010, they are at that major crossroads in any quartet's life when they embark upon a complete cycle of the Beethoven Quartets. Unusually the quartet have decided to chronicle their preparation and progress through a revealing website.

By day, Friar Alessandro Brustenghi lives and works in the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Assisi. In his spare time, he works as a carpenter.  But he also has a new career as, in the words of his producer Mike Hedges, “the next Italian tenor”. The fruits of his entry into Abbey Road’s recording studio is Voice from Assisi. You can listen here on theartsdesk to the entire album, exclusively until midnight on Thursday.

Over the next four seasons the Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes will be embarking upon a “Beethoven Journey” that will clock up 150 performances in 55 cities all over the world. At the heart of this expedition will sit the five Beethoven Concertos and Choral Fantasia all of which will be committed to disc by Sony Classical in recordings made in Prague and featuring the Mahler Chamber Orchestra directed from the keyboard by Andsnes.