In their lyrical, often intensely moving afternoon concert at the Proms, Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax and Leonidas Kavakos demonstrated such seamless communication that at points it was tempting to imagine that even their heartbeats were in sync. It’s an obvious statement to say that brilliant music making is as much about listening as playing, yet these three musicians took it to another level, deftly negotiating the Brahms and Beethoven with the elegance of bats finding their way by echolocation.

Namedrop first: it was Charles Mackerras who introduced me to the music of Vítězslava Kaprálová, lending me a CD with her Military Sinfonietta leading the way. It piqued interest, but more as a sense of promise cut short: this abundantly gifted young woman, first female conductor of the Czech Philiharmonic at the age of 22 when she premiered the work, died three years later before fulfilling her genius.

How easy it is to fall instantly in love with the Dvořák Cello Concerto. And particularly when it is played by an orchestra as fine as the Czech Philharmonic.

The Philharmonia’s residency was the centrepiece of the Edinburgh International Festival’s final weekend, and it’s right that the orchestra should be the focus because they were consistently the finest thing about both their Verdi Requiem and their concert performance of Richard Strauss’ last opera Capriccio.

Conducting a piano concerto and playing a piano concerto are normally two separate jobs. Not at last night’s Prom, where Lahav Shani did both – and not just in a breezy Mozart concerto, but the beast that is Prokofiev’s Third. It was quite the feat, like climbing Mount Everest carrying not just your own supplies, but everyone else’s too. I hope he was on at least time-and-a-half.

Commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and premiered in 2018, Julia Wolfe’s Fire in my mouth is a multi-sensory oratorio written to commemorate the 146 workers who perished in a factory fire in what was the deadliest industrial disaster in New York’s history. Scored for orchestra and female chorus, each voice part represents an individual worker who died, most of them Jewish or Italian immigrants.

Hugh Masekela used to give advice for concerts like this one: “If you haven’t got tickets, turn yourself into a cockroach.” Every seat for Aurora Orchestra’s Beethoven’s Ninth by Heart Prom had already sold out on the first morning when season booking opened back in May, and the queue for returns at the Royal Albert Hall last night must have had well over a hundred people in it.

Bach’s St John Passion came into the world just three centuries ago, in Leipzig at Easter 1724. This year’s Proms shower of manna from musical heaven continued with a consummately polished, sensitive and – ultimately – very moving birthday performance by Masaaki Suzuki and his Bach Collegium Japan.

This year’s Proms programme initially gave rise to some now-customary sneers about predictability, banality and dumbing down. Well, it all depends on where you sit, and what you hear. And my seats have witnessed one absolute humdinger after another. Last night, Sir Antonio Pappano and his London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus partnered with three exceptional soloists to deliver Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem with a commitment, intensity and, above all, ferocious attention to detail that made it an occasion to remember, and to celebrate. 

People hold lots of different opinions about the European Union, but there’s really only one acceptable opinion to be held about the European Union Youth Orchestra; namely, that they’re brilliant. Their visit to the Edinburgh International Festival consisted of two hour-long concerts, but the hundred musicians, aged 18-26, hailing from 27 countries, crammed more artistry and brilliance into those two concerts than some orchestras manage in a season.