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This month we review: Laetitia Sadier, Black Grape, epic45 and The Fallen Leaves.

This month we review: Bergen PO, ET AL/Sir Mark Elder, Bavarian RSO/Bernard Haitink, Bertrand Chamayou and Borys Fedorov, Anna Fedorova, Mikhail & Dana Zemtsov.

The jazzical nature of this ostensibly religious piano cycle invites an array of approaches that range from reverential grandeur to gaudy showmanship, finds Peter Quantrill

In the summer of 1944, the head of music at French radio asked the 35-year-old Olivier Messiaen, and the Catholic writer Maurice Toesca, for a reflection on the Nativity in words and music, to be broadcast over the Christmas season. Beyond its title, there is nothing very Christmassy about the piano cycle that became Vingt Regards, which may be why Messiaen's contribution was eventually shelved.

Martin Colloms wonders if this all-tube line preamplifier can re-establish Audio Research's supremacy in the exalted reaches of the high-end

As an increasing number of digital source components come equipped with variable output level one might think that line controllers – preamps without a phono cartridge input facility – are an endangered species. This will make sense to those embarking on an all-digital system, mixing a variety of digital sources and prepared to convert from the analogue disc domain to digital via an A/D converter function. Indeed, some digital control units are digital-only and cannot handle analogue signals at all.