De Gaulle’s rise, fall and rise again

De Gaulle: Résistance, the first part of Antonin Baudry’s biopic of the unlikely rise, fall and rise again of the great man during the early years of the Second World War, is built upon sound foundations: Julian Jackson’s magnificent biography, A Certain Idea of France. Weaving De Gaulle’s struggle to convince Churchill (superbly played by Simon Russell Beale) of his worth, alongside the radicalisation of the collaborationist Admiral Darlan’s assassin, Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle (though little is made of the killer’s monarchism), this is a thrilling, historically convincing and, at times, rather moving affair.

A history of bookselling

Philip Hensher’s extraordinary and highly praised A History of the Novel in Britain finds its perfect companion in Andrew Pettegree’s The Bookshop: A History of Bookselling From the Dawn of Print to the 21st Century. There are those who would no more get their palms covered in print than do the dirty commercial business of publishing. But it is by such industry that our democracy was born, as Pettegree, the master-historian of his field, makes plain.

Beethoven’s greatest symphony?

Wagner described Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony – his greatest, in my opinion – as the ‘apotheosis of the dance’. It certainly seemed like that in the revelatory performance by the Swedish Chamber Orchestra under Martin Fröst – a gifted clarinettist as well as conductor – at this year’s BBC Proms. Before the main course, listeners were offered Rameau’s delicious Gigue from Dardanus, orchestrated by Hans Ek, and a similar affair from Rameau’s always bewitching Les Indes galantes. Confirmation that the late-night Proms are often the best.