A couple of hours of certainty really were very welcome during referendum week, and Murray Perahia did indeed bring clarity, poise, and an unquestioned masterpiece – Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata – to a full Barbican Hall last night. And not a single note of music written after 1893.

Anger and fear in Elgar, introspection in middle-period Beethoven: these are undervalued qualities in each composer’s music. Yet such moods were vividly present in two hyper-nuanced interpretations last night. It was easy to believe that no other solo violinist in the world today strikes a finer balance between sweet tone in the upper register and overall strength than Nikolaj Znaider; and on this evidence it sounded as if Antonio Pappano, a perfect concerto partner and a master of symphonic light and shade, might have made an even better choice of LSO Music Director than Simon Rattle.

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

2016 began with the passing of Pierre Boulez, arguably the doyen of modernism in the field of classical music. Now, only a couple of months later, it is the turn of Nikolaus Harnoncourt, a musician occupying a similar level of singular elevation but this time in what is often described (certainly inadequately in this case) as the "period instrument" movement.

In 2007 Maxim Vengerov had to withdraw completely from violin playing, and stayed away for four years. He had suffered the after effects of a weight-lifting injury to his shoulder, and needed surgery. But he also described at the time that he felt he needed to re-learn the instrument. If people – like the writer of last night's programme introduction – now refer casually to his “effortless virtuosity”, it is clearly something which has been acquired with an intense effort and sense of purpose. 

Beethoven: Symphonies 4 & 5 Concentus Musicus Wien/Nikolaus Harnoncourt (Sony)

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra's appointment of the Lithuanian conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla as its new Music Director won’t have surprised many concertgoers in Birmingham – or indeed regular readers of theartsdesk. The post has been vacant since Andris Nelsons’ premature departure in summer 2015, and the last few months in Birmingham have seen a string of concerts clearly intended as thinly-disguised auditions for conductors of various ages and nationalities.

In recent performances of the First Symphony under Markus Stenz and the Seventh under Jaap van Zweden, the LPO have burnished their credentials as London’s best Beethoven orchestra. With the low-key oversight of Vladimir Jurowski, they took the Sixth to another level, perhaps the level at which the twentysomething tyro Berlioz heard the symphony and said, "I must write that for myself". And with the Symphonie fantastique, he did.

Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven: it’s a while since I have heard the Scottish Chamber Orchestra play such an essentially classical programme on its home turf, the Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh. Recent reviews have focused on concerts in the much more capacious Usher Hall, where this intrepid orchestra has pushed at the boundaries of its natural repertoire with an ongoing Brahms cycle and even a Mahler symphony.

Some chamber ensembles flourish through creative conflict, contrast and tension. Others streamline their approach, not so much relinquishing individuality as allowing the best of each to blend into more than the sum of their parts. The Trio Shaham Erez Wallfisch has grown, in its five-year existence, to be one of the latter.