Performer: Susan Gritton

After decades as a period instrument revolutionary, the 87-year old conductor bows out with “Dr Haydn's London Academy”, an entertaining recreation of concert-going in the 1790s.

At 82, Sir Roger Norrington may have slowed down his conducting career but I’m very pleased to report that he still loves stirring things up at his concerts.

Somewhere in the region of 180 singers and instrumentalists faced Andrew Manze as he took the podium at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall. Could he handle them? There was never any doubt.

Stephen Medcalf's meticulous staging of Tchaikovsky's bitter masterpiece is lit up by Jung Soo Yun's Lensky, giving a direct injection of emotions: verismo before its time.

The Teatro Real crowns his Britten cycle with a canonic War Requiem conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado and superbly sung by John Mark Aisnley and Jacques Imbrailo. 

Seven works by English composers created a journey from beauty to death as Remembrance day approaches. There wasn't much dwelling on the horrors of war itself, but plenty of human emotion and a sense of life sadly lost.