Did the earth move for us? You bet. Sunday’s two Proms brought fabled visitors to the Royal Albert Hall – first the Boston Symphony Orchestra, then the Berlin Philharmonic for their second concert – but our august guests dispensed with all polite formalities.

Setting aside any reservations about a slight overall timidity in repertoire choices - no problems with that last night - this year's Proms have worked unexpectedly well, above all with their weekend strands.

Messiaen: Catalogue d’Oiseaux Pierre-Laurent Aimard (Pentatone)

Questions of interpretation apart, Simon Rattle has yet again proved the great connecter, this time in concerts separated by just over a month.

The John Adams Edition Berliner Philharmoniker, conducted by John Adams, Gustavo Dudamel, Alan Gilbert, Kirill Petrenko and Sir Simon Rattle (Berliner Philharmoniker)

The BBC Proms is perhaps the only music festival in the world that would (or could) have programmed performances of Steve Reich in a Peckham car-park and Brahms by the Berlin Philharmonic within a few hours of each other. The audacity of it is glorious, the breadth exhilarating, and the fact that both sold out intensely heartening.

Beethoven: Symphonies 1-9 Berliner Philharmoniker/Sir Simon Rattle (Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings)

Louis Aubert: Sillages, Violin Sonata etc Jean-Pierre Armengard (piano), Alessandro Fagiuoli (violin), Olivier Chauzu (piano) (Grand Piano)

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.

Montanari: Violin Concertos Johannes Pramsohler (violin and director), Ensemble Diderot (Audax Records)