Why travel to Glyndebourne for a concert? Well, for a start, none of us has heard a Mahler symphony live in full orchestral garb for at least 15 months, and though the Fourth is smaller-scale than some, its innocent beginnings belie the cosmic adventures ahead.

In the beginning, 38 years ago, came a career-making Mahler Third Symphony for Esa-Pekka Salonen in his first concert with the Philharmonia. Reassembling that vast epic wouldn't be possible under present circumstances.

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra believes that its current post-lockdown summer series features the largest orchestra currently performing live in the UK. It’s not an easy claim to verify, and the full string section certainly wasn’t on stage for this matinee performance under the orchestra’s associate conductor Michael Seal.

By chance, I started watching this streamed concert shortly after hearing a live BBC broadcast of the Philharmonia playing in front of an audience for the first time in over a year. Much though I love the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, steadfast companion over many Edinburgh winters, from student standby to bus pass, there is no doubt where I would have rather been.

Did you wonder what all those creative musicians and artists did when they couldn’t perform in public last winter? Some of them started making films. Putting film of yourself online was, after all, a way of communicating with an audience, and had the bonus of being a potential promotional shop window for your work once people were allowed back in venues again.

One of the many things we’ll miss when Esa-Pekka Salonen moves on from his 13 years as the Philharmonia’s principal conductor will be his programming. For this first of his farewell concerts, he’s not only chosen what he loves but made sure it all fits.

In the final concert marking the Wigmore Hall’s 120-year anniversary, soprano Gweneth Ann Rand and pianist Simon Lepper gave a programme of songs curated by Rand, titled "An Imperfect Tapestry".

Two regrets and a tentative hope before full praise for what has to be the best complete Swan Lake in concert ever.

Sometimes the big musical institutions follow off-piste trailblazers. John Gilhooly of the Wigmore Hall has been a hero in lockdown year, keeping musicians paid up and performing to audiences live or via livestream (or both); but it was clarinettist Anthony Friend who pointed another way forward in the new environment late last summer with his series of chamber music concerts in Battersea Park Bandstand.

As András Schiff remarked from the stage early in this fairly remarkable evening, his usual audience knows he’s not about to play Rachmaninov. The idea for this concert last night and his return visit today, is that we turn up not knowing exactly what we will hear, beyond the name of a composer or two. He has a point. Why should pianists have to decide on every detail of their programmes two years in advance, sometimes more? It’s not an orchestra that needs to hire music and book a conductor.