Feldman: For Bunita Marcus Ivan Ilić (piano) (Paraty)

So much black and red ink has been spilled about the infamous 1913 premiere of The Rite of Spring that it’s easy to underestimate how radical the orchestration, at least, of its predecessor Petrushka must have sounded. It still usually comes up as fresh as poster paint. The chance to hear both scores in a single concert is rare indeed, but one thing we certainly didn’t get from Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela at the start of their latest Southbank mini-residency was the shock of the new.

If the London Symphony Orchestra sounded simply magnificent in this programme of 20^th century French music, it was their restraint that caught the ear rather than the demonstration of an orchestral engine at full throttle for which they are justly renowned. Tonal refinement and fastidious attention to detail were the key signatures of the evening, as they had been for Debussy's Pelléas et Melisande at the weekend.

We don’t often hear Semyon Bychkov in the core Austro-German repertoire. That’s a great shame, because the qualities that make his Russian music performances so special are just as valuable here: the dynamism and immediacy, the supple but propulsive phrasing, and, above all, the firm, guiding hand, exerting control without imposing restraint.

As pianist Beatrice Rana ran up the final bars of Schumann’s Piano Concerto, the conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla turned to her soloist and simply beamed. As well she might. Rana is an artist whose advance publicity belies the seriousness and selflessness of her playing. Her Schumann didn’t concern itself with flashy effects (though there were some daring variations of tempo) or even, particularly, beauty of tone (though the iridescent glow she gave to the little cascades of chords that link the Intermezzo to the finale showed that she commands an impressive palette).

Forget your celebratory Messiahs and your crowd-pleasing Strauss galas. Instead of easing listeners gently into 2016 with conventional New Year fare, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra went for the shock approach in its 2016 opening concert: non-stop, back-to-back, uncompromising contemporary music. And it felt like a marvellously bracing, ear-cleansing, provocative way to kick off the year’s concerts.

"I fell in love with the psychology of Goya and his palette,” wrote brilliant composer-pianist Enrique Granados at the beginning of an evocative paean prefacing his six original Goyescas of 1909-11, finely-wrought gems of the piano repertoire. In love, too, are most of us who have gaped with awe at the astonishing range and careful selection of portraits in the current National Gallery exhibition - one of its best ever, equal in revelation to the recent Rembrandt spectacular.

Elgar: Sea Pictures, Polonia, Pomp and Circumstance Marches 1-5 Alice Coote, Hallé/Sir Mark Elder (Hallé)

Prokofiev milestones stood proudly at the ends of the New Year’s first three major UK concert programmes.

“Music for a while, shall all your cares beguile.” So promise Dryden and Purcell in their hypnotic song, a high-stakes closer for Andreas Scholl and Tamar Halperin’s "Exquisite Love" recital. But beguiling away cares on the eve of a national return to work is a big ask, even in the other-worldly surroundings of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, and something that, on this occasion, the countertenor himself couldn’t quite deliver.