"It was insanely excellent," enthused one of the Järvi Academy Symphony Orchestra's young musicians about the Estonian Festival Orchestra's performance of Nielsen's Third Symphony with its inspirational guiding light, Paavo Järvi. Seated in the balcony behind and above the orchestra, the lucky youthful players rose to their feet the minute the work ended.

Noble intentions and two talented true individuals faced a few obstacles in this admirably-planned Prom. Gianandrea Noseda looked set to reduce the Behemoth aspect of Beethoven's Ninth, especially given a phenomenal, fleet approach to its offspring Mahler Two with a youth orchestra in Georgia back in 2019, but Royal Albert Hall acoustics sometimes got in the way (at least from where I was, towards the back of the hall).

Aaron Copland’s gleaming, monumental Fanfare for the Common Man was written to mark the USA’s entry into World War II. Those thunderous drums and soaring trumpets symbolised the moment when America formally announced itself as the greatest power in the world and its most ardent champion of democracy. How poignant, then, to hear it as a resonant opening to this year’s BBC Proms, in a programme that celebrated America’s 250th anniversary while reminding us that we no longer know what this superpower stands for.

Despite Proms appearances, I'm still not sure that Tom Fetherstonhaugh, mover and shaker of the young Fantasia Orchestra, has yet had quite the limelight he deserves for original programming that reaches out, not to mention for the sleek and romantic sound he got from a relatively small body of strings in this lovely sequence (portamentos as apt for Gershwin as for Mahler). Harry Baker also deserves full credit for a chain of wondrous arrangements.

There was so much to be thankful for throughout the three days I spent at the Aldeburgh Festival this year. First, of course, to have struck gold in so many of the concerts I caught was lucky enough in itself. But the context has never felt more vital as breezes cooled the beach at Aldeburgh and the Alde estuary at Snape while London sweltered in unnaturally high temperatures and a humidity quite different from the fresh airs of the Suffolk coast. 

The Royal Northern College of Music put four of its brightest hopes on show in last night’s big end-of-year concert at the Bridgewater Hall – a composer, a conductor, a solo pianist… and everyone else in its symphony orchestra and chorus.

During the calm evening before an apocalyptic London storm, trumpet virtuoso Håkan Hardenberger delighted the Barbican audience with not only the advertised two showcases for his peerless qualities of tone and expression, but a third as well. Neither Haydn nor Hummel could make it to applaud his deft and dashing accounts of their concertos; but the composer of the encore certainly did.

Berlioz's intended companion for his Symphonie fantastique was Lélio, or the Return to Life - an assemblage of mostly magical earlier pieces strung together with an autobiographical narration.

This beguiling “semi-staged” performance of Mahler’s First Symphony is the latest attempt in a growing movement to interrogate the relationship between classical music performers and their audiences. It’s strongly reminiscent of the point when theatre directors were ripping up the rulebook in the Nineties, whether they were staging their works in site-specific locations, plunging audiences into complete darkness, or subverting expectations with new uses of video projection and puppetry.

Range, I decided on Monday night, was what makes for great performances: range of emotions, dynamics, pitches. It was as true of Abel Selaocoe and his fine fellow musicians (★★★★★) as it had been of the Belcea Quartet with Tabea Zimmermann at the Wigmore Hall last week. The Wigmore also welcomed this team on Friday, and you can be sure that the programme and approach were different; you could also add to the various ranges the gamut from timeless improvisation to the tightest of shared rhythms.