Between bouts of that far from shabby, still shocking masterpiece Tosca, Royal Opera music director Jakub Hrůša went for fleshcreep: too little of Bartók's The Miraculous Mandarin – given a chorus, he could have done the half-hour ballet, not just the suite – and too much of a spooky thing in a big Dvořák cantata.

Does the orchestra that sways together play together? Quite apart from their (reliably gorgeous) sound, the tight-packed strings of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig made quite a sight at the Proms as they collectively surged through key passages of Dvořák and Sibelius as if staging a succession of seated Mexican waves. 

Michael Tilson Thomas: The Complete Columbia, Sony and RCA Recordings (Sony)

Schubert: Sonata in G major D. 894, Moments Musicaux D. 780, Fantasy in F minor D. 940 Maurizio Pollini, Daniele Pollini (pianos) (Deutsche Grammophon)

“Sero sed serio”: so runs the Salisbury family motto on the carved coat-of-arms in the lavishly panelled and painted Marble Hall of Hatfield House. “Late, but in earnest”. The first adjective certainly doesn’t apply to any member of the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, five of whom performed in the Hall for one of the centrepiece events of the 13th Hatfield House Music Festival.

Namedrop first: it was Charles Mackerras who introduced me to the music of Vítězslava Kaprálová, lending me a CD with her Military Sinfonietta leading the way. It piqued interest, but more as a sense of promise cut short: this abundantly gifted young woman, first female conductor of the Czech Philiharmonic at the age of 22 when she premiered the work, died three years later before fulfilling her genius.

How easy it is to fall instantly in love with the Dvořák Cello Concerto. And particularly when it is played by an orchestra as fine as the Czech Philharmonic.

The summer festival circuit in Central Europe can be a bit of a merry-go-round. Notices in festival towns promise world-class orchestras and soloists, but they are usually the same performers, making festival appearances as part of broader touring schedules.

^When you’re running a three-concert residency, you can afford to take a few repertoire risks, to programme a few things that might be close to your heart but which won’t pack in the punters.

It’s probably a bit early to be getting misty-eyed about the approaching end of Sir Mark Elder’s time as music director of the Hallé, but the programme he and they have just finished touring in the North of England will have been, for many, his real farewell.

Its last outing was at the Bridgewater Hall yesterday, and it was (characteristically) a blend of the much-loved and familiar and something adventurous and new.