With the eloquent advocates of Tamsin Little (violin) and Lars Anders Tomter (viola), its case was firmly made. This three- movement work, whose first draft Britten completed just weeks before his Op 1 Sinfonietta, reveals much of the influences of his teachers, John Ireland and Frank Bridge: a rich post-romantic idiom combines with the 19-year-old Britten’s intimacy of style and his ear for string sonorities There is little true concerto writing here. The soloists participated in a chamber-music dialogue which found them intuitively together both with each other and with the orchestra, who revelled in pianissimo string textures of the utmost delicacy.There was further evidence of the remarkable renaissance of this orchestra in an assured performance of Shostakovich’s 5th Symphony. Gatti’s Mahlerian credentials were again on show in the Scherzo, which he rendered with impeccable accuracy and articulation; while throughout he reined in the tempo, refused to rush to the climaxes, and maintained an uncompromisingly bleak and merciless atmosphere that finally imploded in the coda of the finale.The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, under their chief conductor, Osmo Vanska, received similarly enthusiastic ovations for their performance of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony. The introduction to the first movement seemed perfunctory at first, but this soon revealed itself to be a characteristic of Vanska’s interpretation, in which a broad symphonic sweep was brought about through brisk tempi and a complete lack of self-indulgence.

While the grandeur of the first movement and the pathos of the Allegretto were clearly communicated, the Scherzo and Finale seemed too fast. The orchestra responded magnificently, with clean articulation and clear phrasing despite the muddy acoustic; but some flexibility of tempo was still needed to allow the music to breathe.Such freedom had been evident in the first half, with Sibelius’s impressionistic tone poem The Oceanides shaped phrase by phrase, building powerfully to its climax. More impressive still was the London premiere of Thea Musgrave’s Songs for a Winter’s Evening (1995), and one wondered why Vanska chose to finish with Elgar’s charming but ineffectual The Wand of Youth – Suite No 2. Composed to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Robert Burns’s death, Musgrave’s careful selection of seven of Burns’s poems provides a clear narrative thread, charting the sexual awakening of a young girl.

The incorporation of the melodies to which Burns wrote his poems, whether in the foreground or embedded in the texture, gave a loose tonal framework which Musgrave was able to exploit in depicting the emotional voyage. The BBC SSO again exhibited versatility and virtuosity in a highly exposed score, while Lisa Milne, the soprano, responded with increasing maturity and a rich variety of colour, from the Straussian warmth of the second song, though the bleak pessimism of “Ca’ the yowes” and “Ye banks and braes”, to the final mystical apotheosis.In a late Prom, the King’s Consort and Choir, directed by Robert King, presented Lo Spozalizio, a reconstruction of the Venetian secular and sacred music that might have accompanied the lavish ceremonies of the annual “marriage” of the city to the Adriatic. And precisely how do they feed those of their furry friends who prefer their food alive? Are their birds of prey vegetarian?There was no comfort to be had from Rick Stein, reading Cod – a Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (R4) like a very good chef, if the word “deadpan” belongs in such a context. His exhortation to eat cod- bones stewed in sour milk made me (very nearly) reach for a fag..

Learn To Be A Child Of The Dance video, pounds 10.99. Available from branches of Menzies, WH Smiths and Woolworths nationwide Enquiries: 0171 470 6666. You’re retrieving your dropped jaw after the cosy smugness of the world’s most Oedipal series, Mothers and Sons (R4), and this seriously caring voice says “I’m just stimulating her to go toilet,” or “If it’s green poo we have a real problem.” They do it on purpose to make you spill your coffee.The objects of this woman’s attention were grey squirrels and hedgehogs respectively. She runs a wildlife sanctuary where any little creatures are welcome – even the mouse that someone’s cat brought in. Well, OK, but grey squirrels? The scavenging rodents are shot on sight around here. As for the giant, fanged, venomous, hairy crab-spider who emigrated from Vietnam in a terracotta pot – well, I wasn’t convinced that he was passive: repatriation’s too good for this sort.