Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis, Elgar: Introduction and Allegro etc Sinfonia of London/John Wilson (Chandos)

Sir Mark Elder is back with the Hallé for the latest (and penultimate) filmed concert in their “Winter Season” of 2020 and 2021, including the world premiere of Huw Watkins' Second Symphony. He introduces it from the Bridgewater Hall foyer, and mentions plans for a six-concert summer series with audiences present in the hall – well, let’s hope so.

Artists’ management Harrison Parrott has started a concert streaming platform called Virtual Circle on emusiclive.com, launched two days ago and only available as a live event - no catch-ups. Watching its debut concert - the Oslo Philharmonic with the much-buzzed-about Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä - it struck me that it must be terribly difficult to film an orchestra effectively.

Debussy: Images, Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune Hallé/Sir Mark Elder (Hallé)

A front-rank pianist only takes on Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition in full confidence of being able to handle the massive bells and blazing chants of its grand finale, “The Great Gate of Kiev”. To risk it in a far from large café space adds to the element of danger and excited anticipation. Louis Schwizgebel, sonorous master of the house Bechstein – already an instrument designed not to overwhelm – carried it off with high radiance.

Expect no cliches about toreador pianism. Red-earth flamboyance is not Javier Perianes' style, and the seven dances he offered in his programme - eight including an encore - by fellow Spaniard Manuel de Falla were not the most consistently engaging part of the recital.

Et la lune descend – piano music by Claude Debussy Olga Stezhko (Palermo Classica)

There’s always a special atmosphere when the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra returns to Birmingham Town Hall, and it’s not just because of the building’s Greek Revival beauty: the gilded sunburst on the ceiling, or the towering, intricately painted mass of the organ, topped with its cameo of Queen Victoria.

You get a lot of notes for your money in a two-piano recital - especially when seven pianists share the honours for two and a half hours' worth of playing time. Well, they did call it a marathon, crowning the London Piano Festival so shiningly planned by Katya Apekisheva and Charles Owen, and the baton passed seamlessly from two pairs of hands to the next.

We could probably spend all day pondering what makes a great musical partnership. Is it long experience, special sensitivity, a shared sense of humour? We’d get nowhere, though because there is, genuinely, something about it that can't be explained. It’s like a good marriage: it just works, and if you could analyse precisely why, there’d likely be something wrong.