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.

Mozart’s unfinished C Minor mass lacks a canonical completion of the sort that Süssmayr so famously – and still contentiously – imposed on the Requiem. Even without its Agnus Dei and chunks of the Credo, however, the showpiece mass planned for the Salzburg abbey in 1783 remains a mighty and stirring piece whose choral and solo peaks more than match the later work.

I have always been a bit ambivalent about the music of Arvo Pärt, recognising his achievement in crafting a new kind of choral music, while often finding it hard to love, especially in large doses.

Britten was less in the Weekend than the annual title suggested, however significant and striking the works: a singular song cycle, an anguished early viola solo transcribed for cello and a minute-long final sketch. His influence was strong, it’s true, in unforgettable inspirations by Cheryl Frances-Hoad and Philip Moore.

Elena Schwarz was back in Manchester to conduct the BBC Philharmonic only just over two weeks since her visit to the Hallé, and again conducting some mainstream heavyweight works in which her clarity of beat and fresh approach brought rich rewards.