He has been called a ‘meteor of German New Music’; he himself will say that he doesn't ‘care a fig about New Music’, and deny even to know what the term means. Be that as it may, there's no question that Helmut Oehring's is one of the most original (and successful) voices within the young generation of German composers.

It is a curious fact that there is very little crossover between studies on the visual arts and those on the auditory. There are general cultural histories, to be sure, but even in those the two are generally treated separately, following the habitual trend. There appear to be few people who can think equally easily in or with respect to both modes, despite honourable exceptions such as Richard Arnheim and Raymond Head. Yet there are grounds for thinking that music is intrinsic to the human psyche, starting with the obvious fact that, barring severe pathology, everyone includes music one way or another as an important component in their lives: the inference is that it is necessary. But this is material for wider study (as for example Zuckerkandl: Sound and symbol, Blacking: How musical is man, Tomatis: The conscious ear).

Following Ian Pace's excellent introduction to the music of Helmut Lachenmann, hopes were entertained that similar articles might appear introducing the work of other contemporary German composers, in particular Wolfgang Rihm. The problem is that any article on Rihm is out of date before it is published, even with respect to general trends that have emerged in his recent output. Unlike most composers, Rihm has avoided a mid-life creative crisis, not least by devoting groups of works to particular issues: thus an initial impression may well encourage the belief that his creative personality has several distinct manifestations. This fact alone indicates that Rihm has little in common with Lachenmann. While Lachenmann's music is underpinned by the principles of dialectic, and his rich fantasy tends to be contained within the intellectual framework governing his compositional processes, Rihm's spontaneous approach suggests an uninhibited absorption of influences from every quarter, past and present. We need look no further than some of the items in the recently published two-volume collection of Rihm's lectures, discussions, and introductions to various works, which include reflections on composers as unlikely as Louis Spohr.

(The following conversation between Karlheinz Stockhausen and Juan María Solare took place in Kiirten – the small village near Cologne, Germany, where he has lived for many years – on 7 August 1998, during the ‘Stockhausen-Kurscn 1998’. The intention of these courses was, in his own (messianic) words: ‘Forward what I've tried to explain to your own students, wherever you work’. Through a whole week numerous pieces of Stockhausen had been performed in Kiirten, including several of his early works, composed almost half a century ago.)

It was with enormous pride in the achievements of his 23-year-old protégé Vítězslava Kaprálová that Bohuslav Martinů wrote the following in his review of the 1938 International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) Festival, held in London:

The very first item on the programme of the Festival was Military Sinfouictta by Vitězslava Kaprálová – an opening with great promise for both the festival and the composer. Her performance was awaited with interest as well as some curiosity – a girl with a baton is quite an unusual phenomenon – and when our ‘little girl conductor’ (as the English newspapers called her) appeared before the orchestra, she was welcomed by a supportive audience. She stood before the orchestra with great courage and both her composition and performance earned her respect and applause from the excellent BBC orchestra, the audience, and the critics. … Kaprálová's international debut is a success, promising and encouraging.

Two fanfares, one from the Third Symphony and the other from Connotations, the latter not obviously for the Common Man, encapsulate the paradoxes – if not contradictions – of Aaron Copland's symphonism.

• Stravinsky (1): the formative years Judith Weir

• Stravinsky (2): the legacy Peter Quinn

• Tippett Studies Anthony Gritten

• Jonathan Harvey and inspiration Raymond Head

• Hanns Eisler: A Rebel in Music Max Paddison

• Music in the Soviet Age

• Ligeti delineated

Tristram Pugin has asked us to point out that Part I of his article ‘Through the Spectrum: The New Intimacy in French Music’ contained three avoidable errors. The composer Alain Bancquart's name is consistently misspelled as Banquart. Villiers de l'Isle-Adam's novel l'Eve future is mis-titled La nouvelle Eve. Pierre Bayle is not a composer of electro-acoustic music but an 18th-century philosopher: the composer is François Bayle. Although Tristram Pugin accepts ultimate responsibility for these errors, we consider he had had some right to expect they would be detected in editing; as they were not, the responsibility is also ours.

• Berlin: Birtwistle's ‘The Last Supper’ Paul Griffiths

• St Paul's Cathedral: Tavener (plus book and CDs) Robert Stein

• RAM: Firsova at 50 Malcolm Hayes

• New York:‘The Great Gatsby’ at the Met Simon H Jones

• Coliseum & RAM: operas by Turnage and Dubugnon Martin Anderson

• Manchester: Colin Matthews's ‘Pluto’ Raymond Head

• Royal Opera House: Martinů's ‘The Greek Passion’ Martin Anderson

• Gregson

• Guerrero

• Wellesz

• Sherlaw-Johnson

• Downey

• Boulez′s Webern Roger Sutherland

• Kurt Schwertsik John Kersey

• Jón Leifs Mark R Taylor

• The Tcherepnin Dynasty Guy Rickards

• Haubenstock-Ramati Roger Sutherland

• Cage's Sonatas & Interludes Mark R Taylor

• Avshalomoff

• Foulds

• Havergal Brian

• Francis Burt