Haydn: Symphonies 31, 70 and 101 Scottish Chamber Orchestra/Robin Ticciati (Linn)

In 2007, Jiří Bělohlávek set the distinctive seal on his leadership of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and their ongoing Mahler cycle with a riveting performance of the Third Symphony. The legacy he established of a deep, well-moulded string sound which the orchestra didn’t really have before has left its mark on his successor Sakari Oramo’s even more impassioned attempt at the most epic of all Mahler’s symphonies.

Nothing will ever test the depth, breadth and sheer virtuosity of a large orchestra more than Mahler’s symphonies. It’s hardly surprising, then, that the two unsurpassable concert experiences, for me, have been Bernstein’s Mahler Five at the Proms and Abbado’s Lucerne Festival Ninth, or that the two London orchestras with the most consistently challenging conductors, the LPO under Vladimir Jurowski and the BBC Symphony Orchestra with Sakari Oramo, have chosen to open their new seasons with the two most experimental of the 10 symphonies on consecutive nights.

So here he was in town with his top American team, the already great conductor whose premature departure from Birmingham has left the players in mourning, unable to choose a successor yet, and whose insistence that it was too early to take up the coveted post of the Berlin Phil’s Principal Conductor blocked what should have been an obvious choice.

Two percussionists, two pianists, Adams, Reich and Bartók: Colin Currie and friends’ bracing morning recital at the Edinburgh International Festival made quite a pleasing change from the more traditional string quartets and vocal recitals elsewhere in the Queen’s Hall chamber programme. And it attracted quite a different audience, too – including many clearly there for the broader Edinburgh festival, unsure of what exactly they’d let themselves in for.

When the Royal Opera House told Kenneth MacMillan that Mahler was unsuitable for ballet, he went – where else? – to Germany. Though the success of MacMillan's Lied von der Erde for Stuttgart Ballet led to its happy adoption into Royal Ballet repertoire, making ballet to Mahler still seems to draw German companies more than others – whether because the orchestras, audiences, or state subsidies are better, who knows?

You never quite know whether a new work by James MacMillan is going to veer towards the masterly or the overblown. His magnificent chain of concertos has arguably yielded masterpieces, but the Third Symphony at the Proms in 2003 sounded like an unwieldy impersonation of the monumental. Twelve years have passed, and he’s shied off writing a Fourth until he felt he had something to say.

From now until 12 September, when Wigmore darling Iestyn Davies returns to open the new season, the biggest names in instrumental music are to be heard in the biggest venue, the Albert Hall. With all eyes and ears turned by maximum publicity towards the Proms, folk may have forgotten that the Wigmore Hall concerts were ongoing until last night.

Canadian heroic tenor Jon Vickers, who died on Friday 10 July aged 88 and whose full life took him from work on a Saskatchewan farm to the great opera houses of the world, was inimitable, terrifying and titanic. Faced with the intense flavour of what follows, I can only write a sober short introduction to the magical words of our two contributors. 

Yotam Haber: Torus – Chamber Music 2007-2014 (Roven Records)