One of the brightest stars in contemporary music, the American Christopher Rouse remains comparatively little known in the UK. A Baltimore native who teaches at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, he had already served as composer-in-residence for two orchestras and his music was widely performed when his Trombone Concerto earned America's Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1993. Rouse has been particularly successful with orchestral works. He promises to be one of the next century's great composers in traditional forms, specifically symphony and concerto.

The stylistic changes in György Ligeti's music since 1960 have in some ways mirrored those in the wider contemporary music world. In his music of the 1960s he displays an experimental and systematic approach to the exploration of sound matter which can also be seen in the contemporaneous music of composers such as Xenakis, Penderecki and Stockhausen. In the 1970s his music shows a more eclectic approach, particularly the opera Le Grand Macabre (1974–7) in which there is much plundering of past styles – such as allusions to Monteverdi, Rossini, and Verdi. From this work onward there would appear to be a complete break from the approach in his works on the 1960s.

The house is tucked away behind a corner of the road. Once you have passed the gate, the entrance lane, three sleepy dogs, the hall, a spacious living room and the doors to the terrace, you are face to face with the most magnificent Tuscan landscape imaginable. The view of the hills is unspoilt, as is the silence around. It's the ideal place for Luciano Berio to create the colourful, imaginative sound-world that has made him, at the age of 70, one of the most popular and admired composers of today.

The attribution of influence in music – usually, the influence of one composer on another – is a notoriously slippery business, one whose results are apt to seem arbitrary and impressionistic. Recently musicologists, inspired by the example of Harold Bloom in literature (The Anxiety of Influence, 1973, and several subsequent works) have tried to make the study of influence more rigorous. This has sometimes meant the setting up of a formidable theoretical apparatus, the complexity of which can make one lose sight of the simplicity of the musical relationships involved. The pursuit of theory easily becomes an end in itself: as one commentator has observed, references to Bloom, in such discussions, have now become more or less de rigueur, with authors rushing to demonstrate their familiarity with misprision, revisionary ratios and other Bloomian categories. As will be apparent, I am not primarily interested in influence as a matter of anxiety: influence when it shows itself is usually obvious enough (by which I mean obvious to the ear), and the obviousness of the connexion tends to make it uninteresting and further discussion redundant.

• ‘Ines de Castro’ Ronald Weitzman

• Proms 96: Rorem and Glanert Guy Rickards

• Proms 96: Muldowney, Henze and Goldschmidt Malcolm Miller

• Proms 96: Anthony Powers' Symphony Kenneth Gloag

• Holmboe and Vasks in Kokkola Paul Rapoport

• Hopkins and Pritchard in Bristol Calum MacDonald

• Janáček's ‘Album for Kamila’ Peter Palmer

• Psappha in Birmingham Roderic Dunnett

• Shostakovich Studies Edward McKeon

• Pioneers and Minimalists Mike Searby

• Recent Roberto Gerhard discs Antony Bye

• Paul Bowles Robert Cowan

• Malipiero and Scherchen: ‘L'Orfeide’ John CG Waterhouse

• Baltic Choral Music Guy Rickards

• Denisov and other Russians Susan Bradshaw

• British violin music Peter Palmer

• Kurtag's quartet music Rachel Beckles Willson

• Arvid Janson Guy Rickards 53

• Pizzetti chamber music John CG Waterhouse

• Saygun and Skalkottas Guy Rickards

• Diamond, Corigliano and other US composers Bret Johnson

• Perrin and Moret Peter Palmer

• Nicolas Flagello Bret Johnson