Who could have imagined the table-turning controversy that might have cast doubt on the inclusion of works by Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky when planning this programme?

Mark Wigglesworth is a semi-regular guest with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and he’s hugely experienced in the opera world, which might explain why my expectations were so high for his Wagner in this concert. In the event, though, I didn’t love his take on Tristan’s Prelude and Liebestod.

Had he never written a note of his own, George Walker would still have left a record of trailblazing achievements. Born in Washington DC in 1922, he studied piano at Oberlin College and the Curtis Institute (the conservatoire that notoriously rejected Nina Simone). He was taught by Rudolf Serkin and, in 1945, debuted as a soloist first at the New York Town Hall and then, playing Rachmaninov’s third concerto, with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy.

It’s catching on … for the second consecutive night I heard an orchestra begin by playing, to a standing audience, the Ukrainian national anthem. The previous night it was Opera North’s musicians: this time the Norwegian conductor Tabita Berglund addressed the audience at the Bridgewater Hall to explain that it would be dedicated to the victims of war in Ukraine, and the Hallé gave it a resounding reading, followed by loud applause.

Mahler on modern instruments is ubiquitous these days, so historically informed performance is bound to be revealing. Here, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment brought transparency and focus to Mahler’s often complex textures in his Fourth Symphony. The concert was programmed as a showcase for young South African soprano Masabane Cecilia Rangwanasha, whose voice is ideal for this repertoire.

There was something extraordinarily powerful and moving about Saturday’s Beethoven commemoration concert by the BBC Philharmonic and its chief conductor, Omer Meir Wellber.

The main course of this Wigmore lunchtime concert was Brahms but I was lured in by the dessert: a rare chance in this country to hear the music of the French composer Guillaume Connesson.

With reference to smiles beginning to emerge from behind our masks, Mark Wigglesworth, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s new Principal Guest Conductor, wrote the most hopeful and optimistic note of welcome in the programme for this concert featuring Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 22, K482 and Schubert's “Great” C major Symphony.

You may well have seen a concerto performance that has been “directed from the keyboard”, or maybe even one that’s “led from the violin”, but have you ever seen a concerto that’s directed from the oboe?

There was no overt reference to the world outside in this concert, and yet the poignancy of its content could hardly have been clearer if it had been planned: two symphonies and a song cycle each touched by the tragedy of war.