Crusade For Your Art

The Police never really broke up, they just stopped working together – largely because they just couldn't stand playing together anymore and partially because Sting was itching to establish himself as a serious musician/songwriter on his own terms. Anxious to shed the mantle of pop star, he camped out at Eddy Grant's studio, picked up the guitar, and raided Wynton Marsalis' band for his new combo – thereby instantly consigning his solo debut, The Dream of the Blue Turtles, to the critical shorthand of Sting's jazz record. Which is partially true (that's probably the best name for the meandering instrumental title track), but that gives the impression that this is really risky music, when he did, after all, rely on musicians who, at that stage, were revivalists just developing their own style, and then had them jam on mock-jazz grooves – or, in the case of Branford Marsalis, layer soprano sax lines on top of pop songs.

For the hardcore Britten fan on your list, the 10-disc set called Britten conducts Britten is the perfect gift solution. They'll no doubt already have the classic recording of Britten conducting the War Requiem, his choral-orchestral masterpiece. But unless they collect old LPs, they probably won't have most of the rest of the recordings on these CDs including the odd but intense religious cantatas The Burning Fiery Furnace, The Prodigal Son, and Noye's Fludde; the even odder but still totally convincing children's opera The Little Sweep; and all the Christmas music, especially Saint Nicholas. How could any hardcore Britten fans resist?