It seldom happens that you long to hear choral music not in a modern auditorium but some chilly, echoing cavern of a great Victorian town hall.

There are enough historical reasons for differing approaches to Handel’s Messiah to allow every conductor to produce, effectively, their own edition.

Would it be possible to get to the end of the year without hearing a single Bruckner symphony live? I’d reckoned without the presence in Dublin of fabulous conductor Anja Bihlmaier, whose 2022 concert with the National Symphony of Ireland was a fine introduction to the thriving concert scene here, and of Boris Giltburg, one of the most engaging living pianists, in Mozart (and a far from insubstantial Schumann encore).

Zum Roten Igel – the “Red Hedgehog Tavern” – was a concert venue with pub attached in 19^th century Vienna, frequented by the like of Schubert and Brahms.

It was, without doubt, a moment unlike any witnessed in Fabric’s history of just over quarter of a century. Hundreds of us crammed into the superclub seen worldwide as an icon of underground electronic music culture and listened in silence as Jack Bazalgette, co-founder of Through The Noise, read a description of the conditions in which Messiaen composed Quartet for the End of Time. 

For the final concert in their 80th birthday season, the Philharmonia swept us into the great outdoors. Three works imbued with the forces of nature made up a sort of musical sandwich, with a novel central filling flanked by more familiar, and comfortingly nutritious, outer layers. The surprise flavours in the middle arrived in the form of the UK premiere of the Mother Earth piano concerto performed by its composer: the maverick, prolific Turkish pianist Fazil Say. 

You have to admire Samantha Fernando’s concept of the “To Do” list. Hers has one item: “Do Less”.

Since 1981 Ryedale Festival has presented a mouthwatering array of concerts in picturesque churches and glorious stately homes in North East Yorkshire, characterised by interval drinks and picnics in lovely gardens or sunny terraces on long summer evenings.

Even top conductors can have difficulty with Elgar’s late romantic suppleness. Vasily Petrenko of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Santtu-Mattias Rouvali of the Philharmonia have made a heavy meal out of the “Concert Overture” (= symphonic poem) In the South (Alassio).

Bah-humbuggers like me are happy to pass over seasonal fare, maybe excepting a Messiah or Christmas Oratorio, and look ahead to the birds that sing in the spring. That was the theme for this light-of-touch rattlebag, with versatile top quality on display from all performers.