Bach on the Lute, vol. 4
Nigel North
Linn Records

I'm going to cheat a little. My all-time top Ten would include people like Fritz Wunderlich, Gerard Souzay, and a disproportionate number of my own recordings—not for musical reasons so much as for the memories they might evoke. But on this particular desert island, I have decided, only quite recent CDs will be available.... I must have some Bach, and any one of Nigel North's “Bach on the Lute” series for Linn records will do very nicely. My current favourite is Volume 4.

CRYE

Concordia
Metronome

Crye is a CD of English music for viol consort, played by Concordia in what I might call a committed English fashion, and which further attracted me because it includes specially commissioned poems by Gavin Maxwell and is illustrated by a series of woodcuts by Kaethe Kollwitz.

THE PASSION OF REASON

The Sour Cream Legacy
Glossa

The Sour Cream Legacy features recorder players Frans Brueggen, Kees Boeke, and Walter van Hauwe. Again chosen for both the high quality of the playing and the personal focus of the works chosen and their manner of presentation—as if, surprise surprise, the artists are part of today's contemporary sensibility and not merely engaged in "early music”.

CAGE

Roaratorio
Mode Records

John Cage's Roaratorio (Mode Records) is a kind of contemporary fable in the form of a soundscape—a multitude of recorded sounds in and around "James Joyce's" Dublin. The idea sounds (perhaps) merely interesting, but the result is surprisingly and movingly eloquent.

SKEMPTON

Well, Well, Cornelius
John Tilbury
Sony

Howard Skempton is an English composer who is slowly becoming recognised. His music is haunting. He was part of the 60s and 70s so-called English experimental school, whose leading figure was Cornelius Cardew. This record — Well, Well, Cornelius (Sony)— consists of short piano pieces played by John Tilbury. I have also included some of his music on my own forthcoming Bitter Ballads.

VOLANS

White Man Sleeps
Landor

Kevin Volans has composed some wonderful music. White Man Sleeps remains one of the best (and one of the best titles) and the CD (on Landor) commemorates the writer Bruce Chatwin, who had earlier published a short essay about Volans.

RUSSIAN MEDIEVAL CHANT

The Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom
Russian Patriarchate
Choir. Anatoly Gridenko
Opus 111

I buy every recording that Anatoly Grindenko and his Russian male choir make. For this list I choose Russian Medieval Chant—the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom (Opus 111). (Their CD of 19th-century sacred music is also delicious.)

CAROLAN’S HARP

The Harp Consort
Andrew Lawrence-King
DHM

Debería elegir un disco del Harp Consort de Andrew Lawrence-King. Especialmente para el consumo isleño debería ser Carolan's Harp.I would choose one CD by Andrew Lawrence-King's Harp Consort and, especially for island consumption, it has to be Carolan's Harp.

TALLIS

Spem in alium
King’s College Choir.
David Willcocks
Argo

My one deep bow to the past would be the Willcocks/King's College Choir recording of Tallis's Spem in alium, which evokes for me a youthful period of discovery, and remains my favourite performance of this spacious yet deeply personal masterpiece.

PÄRT

I am the true vine
Pro Arte Singers. Theatre
of Voices. Paul Hillier