The rapid rise of Dutch baritone Henk Neven is easy to explain. He is blessed with instant charm and the voice, still attractively youthful in his late 30s, emerges full-toned from his slight frame with a faint, fast vibrato that lends it a distinctive tang. The Neven sound is sturdy rather than flexible, which may help explain why the first half of his Wigmore Hall recital was more satisfying than the second.

This was smart programming. The final night of London's Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music presented the forces of the Göttingen Ha(e)ndel Festival.

It’s safe to assume that mischievous Monsieur Poulenc would have been delighted by the juxtaposition of his joyous slice of Surrealism with Fauré’s serene masterpiece the Requiem. What his elder compatriot might have had to say is harder to imagine. Since Les Mamelles de Tirésias was conceived for the opera house and the Requiem for a place of worship they don’t even belong in the same building – and neither of them by rights in a concert hall – so to call them an odd match would be an understatement.

No quibble about the result. Pianist Martin James Bartlett deservedly became BBC Young Musician of the Year 2014 at Usher Hall in Edinburgh last night. The 17-year-old, a student at the specialist Purcell School in Hertfordshire, and at the Junior Department of the Royal College of Music took the title with a very strong performance of Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. He was watchful, alert to every nuance, playing idiomatically, and with a very convincing sense of the shape of the piece right through to the final pay-off.

Antonio Pappano addressed the audience before the start of the concert to explain the thinking behind this rather unusual programme, first performed in the early nineties and now a perfect fit for the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia orchestra and chorus, where he has been music director since 2005.

Part of the Birtwistle at 80 series at the Barbican, this not-quite-semi-staged Gawain ended up being held back a little by its shoestring production, where a straight concert performance might have transcended its limitations.

Lovely singer, consummate pianist, shame about the programme. “Art song” is a rather prissy term, but we could have done with a few to ballast a diet of old pop – French chansons, Italian canzonettas, Spanish canciones, Victor Herbert tralala. Even a few substantial operatic arias with piano accompaniment made have made a difference. Not that Pretty Yende didn’t reveal her instinctive musicality and the lessons of her bel canto training in Milan at some point in every number, but an evening of encores is just too much for even the sweetest tooth.

Am I alone in a readiness to sacrifice all four Rachmaninov piano concertos – though maybe not the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini – in favour of the second sets of Preludes and Études-Tableaux? Probably not, after last night, when Nikolay Lugansky unfurled the 13 Op. 32 Preludes as one discombobulating symphonic cosmos. This is probably as close as we can come today to being in the presence of Rachmaninov himself, the greatest recorded pianist I know.

Last time I saw Apollo's Fire perform they danced. Halfway through the concert the chamber orchestra just put music stands aside, continued playing their instruments, and broke into a stately minuet on the Wigmore Hall stage. Nothing quite so unexpected happened at their second London appearance this week at St John's Smith Square, but that same maverick energy was still there, translated this time into some quirky programming and some serious energy from Cleveland's favourite early music group.