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The Observer's critics pick the season's highlights, from the Misanthrope to Johnny Marr, Lulu to Lichtenstein, H7steria to Hitchcock. What are you most looking forward to? Add your comments below and download a pdf of the calendar here

December | January | FebruaryDecember

1 Film The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (3D)

Well, not so very unexpected. Every move has been tracked by fanboys, from the casting of Martin Freeman as Bilbo and Benedict Cumberbatch as the dragon Smaug to the return of the king, Peter Jackson, to take over directing from Guillermo del Toro. But Middle-earth (or, as it's sometimes known, New Zealand) is back for the next three Christmases.

3 Pop Scott Walker

The avant-garde Walker Brother returns with his first album since 2006's The Drift. Not for the faint-hearted, Bish Bosch finds the former romantic hero deep in dystopian territory, at once sonorous and rigorous.

3 Classical H7steria

World premiere of...

Walter Salles's long-awaited adaptation of Jack Kerouac's 1957 novel posts a disappointing total to land seventh in the charts

The winners

It's the weekend after the release of Taken 2, it's a fortnight until the arrival of Skyfall, and the October half-term holiday is on its way: perfect conditions, in other words, to create a lull in the release calendar for films targeting adult audiences. With nothing too commercially appealing coming against it, Taken 2 posted a decent hold, and has now achieved a gross of £14.5m after just 11 days of release. Only five films so far this year had taken more after two weekends of play: The Dark Knight Rises (£30.55m), Avengers Assemble (£29.85m), The Amazing Spider-Man (£18.85m), Ted (£17.21m) and Prometheus (£15.47m). Ice Age 4: Continental Drift was released in a staggered fashion, and after two weekends of full national release had reached £17.66m. The original Taken...

Across the country, classical music festivals are filling the summer air with symphonies, but none can compete with the long-distance run of festivals -- Tanglewood -- which runs from the first day of summer all the way through the unofficial end of it, Labor Day weekend.

Celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, the festival held in the Berkshire hills of Western Massachusetts is releasing a soundtrack, if you will, of its musical history, with releases from their archives from 1937 to 2009. We've teamed up with the people at Tanglewood to bring you a sampling of these pieces, whittled down to two minutes apiece. From Mozart's Symphony No. 25, performed in 1937, to Foss' nine-minute opera from three summers ago, some have the feel of an old record, while others a "thereness" unique to live classical performance. Listen carefully for the audience members' coughs, seat shiftings and throat clearings, especially when the sound drops...

Celebrated Italian conductor Riccardo Muti has bounced back from his recent health crisis to land the most coveted award in classical music. The maestro underwent surgery in February and had a pacemaker fitted after collapsing during a rehearsal with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in Illinois.

Muti canceled two planned performances of Verdi's Otello in April to allow himself time to recover, but his career has not suffered, on Wednesday, March 16, he was named the recipient of the $1 million Birgit Nilsson Prize in recognition of his "extraordinary contributions in opera and concert".

"I was deeply touched by the jury's accolade, all the more so given my profound admiration for this unique and extraordinary artist, both as an incomparable musician and as a great interpreter," Muti says in a statement.

He will be presented with the prize at a ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden on October 13.