This winter's evening spent at Wigmore Hall, completely immersed in performances of songs by Tchaikovsky, was a delight.

Mezzo-soprano Ekaterina Semenchuk and pianist Semyon Skigin know these songs profoundly well. They described the proposal thus: “From [Tchaikovsky’s] 104 songs we have chosen 24, focusing on the widest possible range, from joyful exultation to the depths of pain and melancholy.” The words of these great songs might speak of hesitancy and mistakes and regret, but the melodies just flow.

On a night when any brooks running past the Wigmore Hall might have frozen almost solid, Imogen Cooper’s recital travelled on sparkling waters of the highest purity across almost a century of pianistic innovation.

Comparisons might have been odious between three of the world's most cultured players – pianist Jitka Cechová, violinist Jan Talich and cellist Jan Páleníček of the Smetana Trio – and the young, British-based Minerva Piano Trio (Annie Yim, Michal Ćwiżewicz and Richard Birchall).

The Takács Quartet is hard to pin down. The group was founded in 1975 in Budapest, but since 1983 has been based in Boulder, Colorado. Cellist András Fejér is the only remaining founding member, and the violist, Richard O’Neill, only joined in 2020. They also have a British first violin, Edward Dusinberre. So what performing tradition can we expect from them?

I last heard Monteverdi’s Vespers of the Blessed Virgin, published in 1610, at Garsington Opera as the summer light of the Chilterns slowly dimmed across an airy auditorium dotted with singers who bathed us in scintillating meteor-showers of sound. Laden with spectacle, surprise and virtuosity, this piece was born in splendour. Did Monteverdi, overworked in Mantua, write it specifically to secure a top appointment in Venice or Rome, or did he just want to bundle all his choral and instrumental grooves into one hulking, show-off package?

Christian Gerhaher and a string ensemble led by Isabelle Faust presented here a programme of works with a nocturnal theme. Gerhaher’s voice is an instrument of husky shadings and dark hues, so the night theme seemed wholly appropriate.

The Wigmore Hall is a bastion of white musicians playing the music of white composers to a largely white audience and it is to the credit of the management that, in seeking to diversify, it staged this lecture-recital on the history of black musicals in Britain from 1900-1950 in a main evening slot.

The duo partnership between violinist Esther Yoo and pianist Yekwon Sunwoo is still at a very early stage.

Soprano Sabine Devieilhe (pronounced Devielle) and pianist Alexandre Tharaud are both well on their way to becoming "Monuments Nationaux" in France. When their most recent album Chanson d'Amour (Erato/Warner) was launched in September 2020 – the title is a nod to Fauré rather than Manhattan Transfer – the radio station France-Musique more or less cleared its schedule for an entire day, with no fewer than half a dozen separate programmes to mark the release.

This programme was a bit of a calling card from the Carducci Quartet. They have previously recorded all three works, and the three composers, Haydn, Shostakovich, Beethoven, clearly play to their strengths. Add to that a modest running time, the Shostakovich Seventh and Beethoven op.