The name Arthur Bliss always summoned up for me the image of a fuddy-duddy old buffer writing boring music. But as I’ve discovered his work over the last few years – initially prompted by Paul Spicer’s excellent 2023 biography – I have realised this is not fair, and he’s actually a very interesting composer. This year’s 50^th anniversary of his death has seen a push by the Bliss Trust to increase his visibility, with perhaps the most high-profile being the run-out for his Piano Concerto with the RPO at Cadogan Hall last night.

The London Choral Sinfonia are a very impressive group, a professional choir who are churning out terrific recordings at a breakneck pace – I reviewed their latest release of Malcolm Arnold on theartsdesk only last week – as well as a busy schedule of live concerts and educational outreach.

At Smith Square Hall last night there was another aspect of their work on view, a commitment to new music in the form of a premiere of a large-scale new piece and, if I had my reservations about it, that commitment and ambition is still very much to be applauded.

Víkingur Ólafsson had something to prove at the Wigmore Hall. And prove it he did, even if, this time, his Goldberg Variations left a few features of Bach’s inexhaustible keyboard panorama at the edge of his pianistic picture. The much-loved Icelandic chart-topper had promised Beethoven’s final three sonatas for this concert. His last-minute reversion to the familiar Goldbergs – which he played on 88 occasions around the world last season after a supremely successful DG recording – had disappointed a portion of his vast fan-base.

There was a change of conductor from the one advertised for this BBC Philharmonic performance at the Bridgewater Hall – but the one who we heard from was an interpreter of extraordinary vision and intensity. Yoel Gamzou is also a composer in his own right, and a Mahler specialist, it would seem: he’s made his own completion of the Tenth Symphony, so he’s no doubt as aware of the language and creative imagination of that other composer-conductor as anyone.

I was in Germany last week, and nearly every town I went to was advertising a St Matthew or a St John Passion taking place in the week up to Easter. It says something about how deeply engrained Bach’s Passion settings are in German culture that they can muster up so many performances while, in most years, we in Scotland get only one for the whole country.

When you’ve already come as close as possible to perfection in the greatest masterpiece, why risk a repeat performance with a difference? Because Bach’s St Matthew Passion needs to be an annual fixture without routine, and because inspirational IBO director Peter Whelan can be guaranteed not only to recapture the magic but to try a few new things, and to choose new soloists with fine judgement.

A lot hung upon the delivery last night of Henning Kraggerud, whom I last witnessed leading performances of Strauss’s Metamorphosen and some of his own music at the head of a mine in Svalbard: he was announced at the beginning of the concert as the Irish Chamber Orchestra’s new artistic partner, following the likes of another instrumentalist-composer, Jörg Widmann, and fellow violinist Thomas Zehetmair. So did he triumph? Beyond wildest expectations.

Kahchun Wong returned to the symphony with which he made his first big impression conducting the Hallé – and made a big impression with it again.

Tired after a hard day at the office? You might think you need a Classic FM-style warm bath, but the blast of Prokofiev’s Second Symphony, one of the noisiest in the repertoire, is the real ticket to recharging the batteries. Gianandrea Noseda, on the latest stage of his bracing journey through the composer’s symphonies and embracing the London Symphony Orchestra’s hugely popular Half Six Fix series, served it up with panache both in word and deed.

When Vladimir Jurowski returns to what used to be “his” London Philharmonic Orchestra, you’d better jump. I would have done on Wednesday had I been able to get to his heady mix of Russian and Ukrainian rarities; luckily I could on Saturday night, because an outwardly standard programme of early 19th century works proved perfect, raising Schumann’s much-denigrated Violin Concerto to the level of Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture and Schubert’s “Great” C major Symphony.