There comes a time in one's life when instead of switching channels when Gardeners' Question Time starts on BBC Radio 4, you find yourself soothed by discussions of wintersweet, sawfly and lousewort. Devotees of the programme will know of Iford Manor because of its garden, designed by Harold Peto to the Italian model, its terraces heavy with wisteria, its cloisters peppered with statuary from long abandoned churches. For those of us who can kill a pot of basil with a single glance, it hosts the most enchanting of the summer festivals, Iford Arts.

Conservatorium, Amsterdam

Warp's latest signing is the rapper/producer Jeremiah Jae. To mark the occasion, he's dropped a new mixtape which can be streamed/downloaded for free at snd.sc/1c6EBwH and ind.pn/163xb7p. The nine-track Bad Jokes mixtape trundles along in a haze of snippets, samples and Jae's tranquil, pop-culture-laden raps in one blunted, weed-infused sound, largely produced by the man himself. South Californian beat-scene influences abound throughout, as evinced by Flying Lotus showing up with production on one track.

Bartók's two violin concertos were composed three decades apart, and Isabelle Faust here skilfully brings out the contrasts between youth and maturity, particularly in her detailed attention to the composer's instructions regarding phrasing and articulation in the “Violin Concerto No. 1”. Terms such as “utterly desolate”, “always volatile”, “dreamlike” and “exhausted” hint at the emotional tenor of a work written in romantic fever, which moves from the blissful serenity of the first movement to the more playful, teasing disposition of the second, which presages his later spikier, more angular style. The “Violin Concerto No. 2” is a masterpiece given its head by Faust, the captivating, rhapsodic opening passage heralding a remarkable performance.

There is little that is more quintessentially British than the proms, but on Thursday the Royal Albert Hall will hear a youth orchestra from the Occupied Territories, which has been asked to perform alongside Nigel Kennedy. The Palestine Strings travelled to London today.

He famously reduced the conductor Josef Krips to tears during rehearsals with the LSO

Acclaimed musician Min-Jin Kym has talked of her “elation” after the British Transport Police tracked down her Antonio Stradivarius violin, worth £1.2m, following an almost three year search.

The Proms’ Ring has reached episode three: Siegfried, the one where a fearless beefcake falls in love with his aunt. After the incestuous passions of Die Walküre it doesn’t seem so risqué. Its five-hour span moves from darkest foreboding to love music intense almost to the point of insanity, which Justin Way’s semi-staging matched by flooding the whole auditorium with pinky-gold light.

The first British staging since 1926 of Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari's mafiosi opera takes the crown for lurid incident and spectacle

The Proms’ Ring has reached episode three: Siegfried, the one where a fearless beefcake falls in love with his aunt. After the incestuous passions of Die Walküre it doesn’t seem so risqué. Its five-hour span moves from darkest foreboding to love music intense almost to the point of insanity, which Justin Way’s semi-staging matched by flooding the whole auditorium with pinky-gold light.

The sweltering dustbowl of Victoria Park played host to a crowd of beery, sweaty twentysomethings in neon glasses forgetting the working week - soundtracked by house, hiphop, and a touch of politics.

Chastity Brown is that rarity, an R&B singer not in thrall to the diva delusion. Her folk-blues style instead comes from an earthier tradition – she cites the influence Leadbelly had on Woody Guthrie as a pivotal moment in her musical development.

Death comes during a period of high drama for the theatre

When I was about 14 my brother's girlfriend bought me a couple of second-hand books for my birthday. One was a picture-book of Victorian sheet music covers and the other was the The Lost Stradivarius by J Meade Falkner. She had bought them for me because she knew that I loved music. Indeed, I loved music so much back then that I often neglected to read.