William Thomas has fast made an impact as a rapidly rising (or should that be descending?) star of the bass world. Though he has only recently graduated from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, his awards include Winner of the Veronica Dunne International Competition and Winner of the Critics’ Circle Award for Young Talent.

The Nash Ensemble’s concerts dedicated to “Beethoven and the Romantics” not only trace the flowering of the Romantic spirit in music from the Vienna of the 1800s through a continent and across the century. They also give a place at the top table for works by once-sidelined helpmeets of the movement’s giants: Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann, Alma Mahler.

This recital of love songs by Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms, devised by the pianist Helmut Deutsch and sung by the megastar duo of soprano Diana Damrau and tenor Jonas Kaufmann, looked on paper like the Lieder event of the year. In practice, it left a good deal to unpick.

After a too-much-too-soon debut disc, Lisa Davidsen has just rolled out the gold on CD with her great fellow Norwegian Leif Ove Andsnes in songs by their compatriot Grieg.

Sometimes you know the quality of music by the depth of the silence when it ends. Last night at Middle Temple Hall – and thank Mahler’s mystical heavens for it – the final ghostly “Ewig” of Der Abschied faded away into a soundless void that lasted just as long as it had to.

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.

Now that the summer opera-house companies have pulled off staged triumphs under the most difficult of circumstances, it’s time to celebrate semi-al-fresco concerts. Not so many have cropped up as I’d hoped after the success of the Battersea Park Bandstand Chamber Music series last year. The Wigmore Hall made a start in nearby Portman Square and we have a host of impressive August events planned by Bold Tendencies in Peckham Multi-Storey Car Park, building on the successes of 2020.

Some lockdown-era recital programmes have doled out miserly short measures, as performers gallop through a brief, rushed hour (or less) of music as if afraid to tax the online patience of their disembodied audience.

The screen lights up, the Zoom link connects and there, blinking back at you (30% awkward, 70% enthusiastic) is a familiar face. Is it definitely working? Can you hear me? What do we say now? God, I'm getting old. Even after 12 months of conversation through webcams it still feels forced to me; something to one side of real life, simultaneously weird and routine, intimate and alienating, even as memories of the Old Normal grow increasingly remote. Is that a piano? Well, why not, these days?

Young performers seeking platforms for their careers have had it especially rough over the past year, most slipping through the financial-support net and now facing the further blow of the Brexit visa debacle. So it’s always good to welcome quality streamings supporting their progress.