When Marin Alsop was appointed to succeed Yuri Temirkanov as music director of the Baltimore Symphony in 2005, all was not sweetness and light. Understatement. Ninety per cent of the players registered sourness and dark. They complained that the appointment was premature, lamented that they had been excluded from the selection process.

In the interim, the tempest appears to have subsided. Alsop, who officially took over last season, has won a $500,000 (€344,800, £257,000) “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation and has continued her commitments in Britain. Musical fortunes in Maryland seem to be thriving (everything is relative). Public relations machines are cranking out much ado about the BSO being the first major American orchestra entrusted to a woman. That distinction, not incidentally, is disputed by the somewhat less exalted Buffalo Philharmonic, which has been led by JoAnn Falletta since 1999.