Opinion

Reissued last November on vinyl and in digital formats, Benjamin Britten’s Decca recording of his War Requiem was produced at Kingsway Hall by John Culshaw, and engineered by Kenneth Wilkinson, in January 1963 – eight months after its Coventry Cathedral UK premiere.

An enduring bit of wisdom cautions against extravagant purchases – the must-have new car, for example, that loses 20% of its value the moment it’s driven off the dealer’s lot. Something similar happens with high-end audio, but worse, because were you to try selling your latest cost-be-damned amplifier or ultra-performance DAC two weeks post-purchase, you’d be dismayed to learn that you might recover only 50% or so of what you paid.

How much longer can it last? In America, as here, vinyl sales have been growing year on year for nearly two decades. But a 2022 slowdown in growth set some commentators suggesting that the vinyl boom could soon be over.

It's hard to be green and analogue. Manufacturing vinyl LPs consumes a lot of fossil fuel and heat energy - one estimate puts the production of PVC (polyvinyl chloride) at 30,000 tonnes per year for use by the global vinyl industry. So, it was big news when British speaker company PMC recently announced investment in UK company Evolution Music Ltd and Evovinyl, an alternative to PVC made from natural sugar cane.

The spring cleaning of schedules at BBC Radio 3 took its listeners by surprise, to judge from comments both within and outside the media. The 'shop window' of Record Review on a Saturday morning moved to the first floor, in the afternoon. The spoken-word programmes were shunted off to Radio 4, while Friday Night Is Music Night has resurrected an antique Radio 2 title. The channel's once-serious coverage of new and contemporary music is almost entirely effaced under the controllership of Sam Jackson, who formerly headed up Classic FM.