Blu-ray: The Apu Trilogy

★★★★★ BLU-RAY: THE APU TRILOGY An enduring Bengali epic

An enduring Bengali epic from India's greatest filmmaker

Over the years, the legend of The Apu Trilogy has been much-repeated. Now widely considered India’s greatest filmmaker, Satyajit Ray was little more than a small-time commercial artist when, failing to find a sponsor for his script, he assembled what few funds he could in order to begin filming.

Elektra/Der Rosenkavalier, Nightly Met Opera Streams review - searing hits and indulgent misses

ELEKTRA / DER ROSENKAVALIER, MET OPERA ONLINE Searing hits and indulgent misses

Challenging direction, great conducting and luxury casting in New York Strauss

A brutal Greek tragedy and a rococo Viennese comedy, both filtered through the eyes and ears of 20th century genius: what a feast on consecutive nights from the Metropolitan Opera's recent archive. There's been real thought behind the wealth of programming in the company's attempts to keep the world happy for free during lockdown, including a whole Wagner week.

Director Marjane Satrapi: ‘The real question is do you like everyone? No? So, why should everyone like you?’

FILMMAKER MARJANE SATRAPI ‘The real question is do you like everyone? No? So, why should everyone like you?’

The forthright 'Radioactive' filmmaker on intelligence, ignorance and Marie Curie

Marjane Satrapi, the Iranian-born French filmmaker, has a reputation that precedes her. Her upbringing was the subject of the acclaimed films Persepolis (2007) and Chicken With Plums (2011). Persepolis won the Cannes Jury Prize, two César awards and was nominated for an Oscar. Satrapi adapted and co-directed both films. She also wrote and illustrated the comic books on which they were based.

Frang, CBSO, Yamada, Symphony Hall Birmingham review - the tingle factor

★★★★ FRANG, CBSO, YAMADA, SYMPHONY HALL BIRMINGHAM The tingle factor

Thoughtful Shostakovich from Vilde Frang, non-stop thrills in Respighi's Roman triptych

There’s a particular moment of a particular recording – I suppose every slightly over-obsessive record collector has one – that I just keep listening to over and over again. It’s in Fritz Reiner’s 1960 Chicago Symphony recording of Respighi’s The Fountains of Rome, and it comes right after the first flood of the Triton Fountain starts to recede. The violins glide up into their cadence; just two notes, but the gesture is so graceful, so effortless, and so gloriously, naturally stylish that it gives me shivers every time.

Francesca Wade: Square Haunting - Bloomsbury retold

The stories of five women in Bloomsbury recover lost layers in London's palimpsest

These days, Bloomsbury rests in a state of elegant somnolence. The ghosts of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell linger on in the shabby gentility of Russell Square and its environs, the bookish institutions that are the bones of the place conferring tranquility, despite the many students and tourists.

Mahler's Eighth, CBSO, Gražinytė-Tyla, Symphony Hall Birmingham review - a symphony of 600

★★★★★ MAHLER'S EIGHTH, CBSO, GRAZINYTE-TYLA Stunning centenary-year launch

A rite of spring as a great orchestra launches its centenary year in epic style

“Try to imagine the whole universe beginning to ring and resound” wrote Gustav Mahler of his Eighth Symphony. “There are no longer human voices, but planets and suns revolving.” It’s an image that captures the impossible scale and mind-boggling ambition of this so called “Symphony of a Thousand”.

1917 review – immersive, exemplary war film

BAFTA FILM AWARDS 2020 Best Film and Best Director on a board-sweeping night for '1917'

Sam Mendes makes his most personal film to date – and one of his most accomplished

The greatest war films are those which capture the terrifying physical and psychological ordeal that soldiers face, along with the sheer folly and waste of it all –  Paths of Glory, Come and See, Apocalypse Now, Saving Private Ryan, most recently Dunkirk. Sam Mendes’ 1917, which has just won two Golden Globes and could well triumph at the Oscars, joins their ranks.