Here’s a paradox. Just as the words “new Cold War” were beginning to form on the lips of political commentators in the West, two British film-makers, former TV newsmen no less, were being granted uncensored access to the Bolshoi Theatre – just 500 metres from the Kremlin – to make a candid documentary for HBO. Their cameras didn't stop turning for four months.

Dutilleux: Le Loup, and other early works Vincent Le Texier (baritone), Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire/Pascal Rophé (BIS)

It was business as usual in the British dance world in 2015. Looking back over the year, theartsdesk's dance critics see the industry's many talented, capable people continuing to do their jobs well, but we don't recall being shaken, stirred or surprised as often as in other years, or at least not by new works: our top moments of the year are concentrated in the farewells of great dancers Sylvie Guillem and Carlos Acosta, and in classic productions of classic ballets.

The musical future looks bright indeed, at least from my perspective. There are more classical concerts than ever going on across the UK on most days of the year, so who can know with any authority what might have been missed? Yet each of theartsdesk’s classical music writers has a special take on the events of 2015, and part of mine has been the special privilege of following a trail of younger players in out-of-the-way places.

Searing emotional truth has to be at the core of any attempt to stage Tchaikovsky’s “lyrical scenes after Pushkin”. I was among the minority who thought Kasper Holten got it right, with deep knowledge of the original verse-novel, in his first production as Covent Garden’s Director of Opera back in February 2013. Then he had total commitment from Simon Keenlyside and Krasimira Stoyanova as an Onegin and Tatyana looking back in anguish on their youthful selves, and Pavol Breslik to the manner born as doomed, callow poet Lensky.

Christmas legends are not born; they are made. In the case of the Nutcracker, its Christmas indispensability in Britain and America stems not from the original 1892 St Petersburg production, but from 1950s reinterpretations by emigré Russians (Balanchine and Karinska in the US, Lichine and Benois in the UK). Like most other story ballets, there is no stable text - apart from the Tchaikovsy score, of course, but Balanchine was happy to cut and rearrange that too.

If Matthew Bourne never made another story ballet, his company New Adventures could probably carry on touring his back catalogue till the end of time. The Sleeping Beauty is only on its second London outing, and although it lacks the emotional clout of his Swan Lake, it’s clearly set for a similarly long life as a Great British Export.

With its hybrid Romantic-kitschy plot, chocolate-advert Tchaikovksy tunes, and baggage of obligatory Christmas cheer, the Nutcracker is harder to get right than you might think if you've only ever seen Sir Peter Wright's Royal Ballet version, now over 30 years old and still practically perfect in every way.

Why play a very substantial act of ballet music in concert? In the case of Aurora’s wedding entertainment from Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty, there are at least three good reasons. It embraces the most inventive and unorthodox of divertissements in any ballet – the one in The Nutcracker comes a close second – and a symphony orchestra deserves the chance to perform at least a substantial chunk of what Stravinsky called Tchaikovsky’s chef d’oeuvre.

London foists hard choices on concertgoers. Over at St John's Smith Square last night Nikolai Demidenko was giving a high-profile recital of Brahms and Prokofiev. But since the Prokofiev CD which has had the most impact in recent years has been Freddy Kempf’s, of the Second and Third Piano Concertos with the Bergen Philharmonic and Andrew Litton, a half-full Cadogan Hall seemed like the right place to be, even without Prokofiev on the programme.