For all its passing British sea shanties and folksongs, Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony does Walt Whitman’s determinedly global-oriented poetry full justice. That “pennant universal” was reflected in two superlative soloists from South Africa and the USA, our national treasure of an Anglo-Italian conductor, an Argentinian chorus director and a raft of international names in chorus and orchestra who just happen to be UK citizens.

It was the sonically adventurous, shiveringly atmospheric cello piece by Latvian composer Preteris Vasks that proved to be the first showstopper of this enjoyably esoteric evening. Dutch cellist Hadewych van Gent began the pianissimo movement of Vasks’ Gramata Cellam by creating a build-up of whistling harmonic effects on the A string, followed by a yearning feather-light improvisation in the cello’s upper registers that suddenly plunged vertiginously bass-wards.

When a piece of music is heard for the first time ever, there’s always the delicious hope that, just by being there, an audience might witness something special, to be remembered fondly. It doesn’t happen always, but I think it did for Héloïse Werner’s Hidden Mechanisms, which received its first performance in Manchester last night.

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

Perhaps all great music counterpoints and comments on the times, but Antonio Pappano and the London Symphony Orchestra have been searingly congruent. Before he took up his post as Chief Conductor, there were the extinction whispers of Vaughan Williams’ Sixth Symphony the night before lockdown and the fury of VW’s Fourth on the eve of Boris Johnson’s election. Now the aggressive dynamism of Walton’s First raised us out of that sinking feeling as the USA worsens by the day.

What a delight to see an almost full Queen’s Hall for a programme solely of contemporary music. The Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s New Dimensions series, launched this season, sees a host of newer classical works performed and appears to be drawing in regular audience members as well as a younger crowd.

At the end of an exhausting week in which Holocaust Memorial Day struck a more urgent note than ever as fascism started tearing through the USA, parts of this concert were bound to hit hard. That they did so to the power of 100 was thanks to the extraordinary impact of Jakub Hrůša, now recognised as one of the greats by British audiences as he waits to take up the full-time reins at the Royal Opera. The BBC Symphony Orchestra burned for him in fullest focus.

Just now, music about survival, transcendence and the afterlife may have a special resonance for the BBC Singers. After all, the supremely versatile century-old chamber choir has endured its own near-death experience – at the hands of the BBC top brass who, in 2023, planned to axe them.

Reynaldo Hahn: Piano Quartet, Piano Quintet, Songs Karim Sulayman (tenor), Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective (Chandos)

After a week of illness, heading out into the Sunday afternoon cold and rain was not something I was overjoyed to undertake. But in the event this short Wigmore Hall recital by three young singers and their fellow student pianists was thoroughly cheering, sending me back into the mizzle with a spring in my step. Both in their repertoire choices and their delivery of those choices there was so much to like and I am glad to have been there.