• The French composer Marin Marais (1656-1728), who worked at the court of Versailles, was a virtuoso bass viol player who wrote about 600 works for that instrument in various combinations. His five books of viol music are a mainstay of this specialised repertoire, which first attracted widespread modern appreciation after the composer and his music were featured in the film Tous les matins du monde (1991).
François Joubert-Caillet and the ensemble L’Achéron, key players in the baroque music field, have recorded the fifth book, Cinquième livre de pièces de viole (Ricercar/Outhere, 3CDs). Marais had given up playing by the time he wrote these works, and reportedly preferred to tend his garden. The pieces are short and full of contrast, flowing one into another with meditative continuity. Listening to the entirety in a sitting could defeat the most viol-devoted, but the playing is excellent, and can be happily heard in shorter doses.
• Whether as soloist or chamber musician, the British violinist Madeleine Mitchell has expanded the frontiers of music for her chosen instrument, through playing unfamiliar works and commissioning new ones. Her wide-ranging album Violin Conversations (Naxos) draws on recordings from 1996 to 2022 and features 10 composers, all born in the 20th century. Alan Rawsthorne’s Violin Sonata (1958), enriched by the late Andrew Ball on piano as duo partner; Errollyn Wallen’s Sojourner Truth (2021) for solo violin, named after the American abolitionist and women’s rights campaigner, which takes a spiritual as its starting point, mixing drones and jazz-hued idiom.
Caprice, by Wendy Hiscocks, inspired by a bird in flight, makes a wistful nod towards the soaring, trilling string writing of Vaughan Williams. Douglas Knehans’s seductive Mist Waves (2019), Thea Musgrave’s Colloquy (1960) and works by Martin Butler, Richard Blackford and Howard Blake combine to make a fresh and challenging recital, beautifully played. Kevin Malone’s witty Your Call Is important to Us (2022) will delight those who have been driven mad by being put on hold: surely every one of us.
• Radio 3 is in the midst of a 12-day commemoration of the 400th anniversary of William Byrd’s death. Check out Music Matters, Choral Evensong and Composer of the Week, among others. Tomorrow, Harry Christophers and the Sixteen, great exponents of this music, explore the Elizabethan composer’s religious belief in Sunday Feature: Byrd and Beyond: Challenged by Faith, 6.45pm, Radio 3/BBC Sounds.
