Venue: Kölner Philharmonie, Cologne

Hanna-Elisabeth Müller joined the visiting Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin for Mahler's Fourth Symphony and Unsuk Chin's surprising Puzzles and Games, derived from her opera Alice in Wonderland.

Schumann's Third returns to its spiritual home as François-Xavier Roth conducts the Gürzenich Orchestra in a fine Rhenish. 

Brio is one important element in the mining of Romantic feeling. Not everything worked in this combination of Mendelssohn, Bruch and Schumann.

Luisi programmes Berg, the dark harmonist, and Schubert, the blithe melodist, as a musical yin and yang in Cologne. 

A strong connection between Manfred Honeck and the WDR musicians was clearly palpable during the entire performance.

An exciting, though brief, world premiere and Schubert’s turbulent Fourth Symphony were given impressive readings by the Gürzenich Orchestra under Michael Sanderling, with Raphaela Gromes sensitive and passionate in Schumann.

The players gathered at the bar for a Scotch as the credits rolled. After three hours and twenty minutes of note-taking, I decided to follow suit.

In Cologne, Stravinsky's neoclassicism comes up against the echt-romanticism of Schreker and Korngold, ending in a draw.