Boulez in Birmingham; London Symphony Orchestra/Boulez

Forty years separate the two works but there's the same crystalline mind creating exhilarating beauty from a few cells of music

All Tomorrow's Parties

Rowdy, ramshackle but top-heavy with middling guitar bands, ATP's return to Camber Sands was not a vintage party

Prometeo

Luigi Nono's vast and challenging sound-drama is a revitalising experience at its triumphant British premiere

Madonna, Radio 1 Big Weekend

A sterile, soulless performance made Madonna resemble an embarrassing auntie desperately trying to be hip

BBCSO/Davis at the Barbican

The premiere of Dominic Muldowney's Tsunami fails to impress, although the rest of the concert was thrilling

Jonathan Richman

Softly-spoken Jonathan Richman uses his concert to rail against the internet and the mobile phone - and to pay tribute to his dying mother

CSS, the Futureheads, MGMT

The group’s newer songs, many of which attempt a greater lyrical and musical complexity, don’t extract an ecstatic reaction from the...

Girls Aloud fail to set Glasgow alight

They opened the show in promisingly high-camp style, but too much of the set felt graceless and flat, says Stephen Dalton

Robert Plant & Alison Krauss live up to the hype

At the Manchester Apollo, Robert Plant showed why he eschewed touring with Led Zeppelin to perform with Alison Krauss

Adele

The South Londoner's youth proved the dominant factor in a performance that lacked musical muscle, but fizzed with fun

Lydia Lunch

Channelling pain and anger into howling screeds of poetry, Lunch turns lyrical obsessions into an intense, visceral racket

Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra/Bolton

They had two options really - muscular vim or golden blend - but only landed upon a mush in the middle

Milton Nascimento

The lack of variation in the pacing, which hovered around the slow-to-medium mark, threatened to become oppressive

Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds at the Academy Glasgow

At 50 and now an established icon, the Australian rocker showed no hint of complacency in a cracking show

Halle/Elder

An adventurous programme of little-known works has its highlights but sometimes novelty is not enough

Cheltenham Jazz Festival

Bigger, and longer, than ever - but the real moments of musical magic were to be found in the smaller venues

Melody Gardot

No longer overshadowed by her poignant backstory, the glamorous jazz chanteuse has the makings of a big star

The Kooks at Brixton Academy, SW19

They took some getting there, but The Kooks eventually managed to show what they are capable of

Dalston Songs at the Linbury Studio, Royal Opera House

Helen Chadwick taps into the music of Hackney's dispossessed - although not without some monotonous moments

More Moore! at Ronnie Scott's, W1

People often forgot that Dudley Moore was an exceptional musician. This tribute evening addressed that