It’s not quite the day the music died, but it is the week that Harrods killed off its piano department after 118 years. And while the Knightsbridge emporium wouldn’t be the first port of call for every would-be pianist in the market for a new instrument (“would madam care for an elephant with that Bechstein?”), the fact that it is closing its piano store’s doors is indicative of a wider trend.

Classical music fans regularly complain that their enjoyment of concerts is ruined by the coughing and hacking of their fellow audience members. New research has suggested they have good cause to complain; people cough twice as much during a classical concert and what is more, many do it on purpose.

Yoshikazu Jumei rarely gives piano recitals in the West, and the Wigmore was packed with a largely Japanese audience, due no doubt to the fact that the proceeds would go towards helping the victims of the 2011 tsunami.  

A Fine Frenzy is the nom-de-disque of Californian singer-songwriter Alison Sudol, whose gently keening vocals invoke a strain of Pacific coastal wyrdness.

Sooner or later, every prog-metal band feels the need to record a double-album, and the results invariably expose the paucity of their inspiration.

Amit Drori’s Savanna looks like a mechanical Eden. Enchanting robot creatures nose the air and investigate the stage: a trundling tortoise, a springbok made of springs. There are “ohhhs” of wonder and delight as each new animal emerges.

Few pianists give as little away with their body-language as Ashley Wass does in his neat dark suit: impassive from start to finish, he even acknowledges tumultuous applause without cracking a smile.

I don't know what's happened to men's fiction As a judge for the Costa Book Awards [for books written by authors based in the UK and Ireland] I've read hundreds of books by men and I have to say [most] are dull, rambling, violent or self-indulgent. Yet historically some of my favourite books are by men such as Charles Dickens and F Scott Fitzgerald. So men need to pull up their socks and return to form.

When a recording of Molly Drake singing her composition "Poor Mum" was made public a few years ago, it was immediately evident from where much of her son Nick's talent, not to mention his intonation and fragile worldview, had derived.

This fine if elusive novel about a jazz giant echoes his art in both its style and its story-telling

When it comes to choosing a mate, both sexes are heightist*.

Wigmore Hall, London

It was goods-in-the-window time for the House of Birtwistle at Kings Place. On our way down through the bowels of this temple to commerce and culture, we passed the premiere of a portrait exhibition by Adam Birtwistle, before arriving in the auditorium for a concert of pieces d’occasion by his father Sir Harrison, some to be played by the musicians for whom they were composed.

Wigmore Hall, London