Benjamin Grosvenor [Marco Borggreve]

EVERY year when the Proms come round there’s a standard flurry of debate about whether it is or is not a “good season”; and to be honest, this year’s isn’t standout. Big-league visiting orchestras are down in number, and there aren’t so many programmes that strike me as great feats of the imagination.

But – and it’s a big but – it remains one of the leading, probably most celebrated, concert series in the world, and we’re lucky to have such a thing. Simply to be inside the Albert Hall is always an experience. And you can be there for as little as £8, because that’s all it costs for a standing place down in the arena or up in the gallery (where the sound is arguably better than anywhere else in the hall, it’s usually cooler in hot weather, and there’s more space to sit down when needed). Rock concerts and football matches charge you infinitely more.

Everything begins this week, on Friday, July 14, and runs on to Saturday, September 9: a total of 71 concerts. Every one is broadcast live on radio. And though the BBC is, in its muddled, craven way, reneging on its responsibilities to classical music, there are still a fair number that go out on TV.

Themes this year take in two major anniversaries, for William Byrd and Rachmaninov. Lovers of Mahler are well catered for. And among the undoubted highlights are a performance of Berlioz’s massive opera The Trojans, conducted by the veteran John Eliot Gardiner (Sept 3) and a visit from Glyndebourne with a semi-staged version of their hugely-acclaimed Poulenc opera Dialogues of the Carmelites – a devastating piece if you don’t know it, about nuns in the French Revolution who make a stand for their faith and go to the guillotine as a result (Aug 7).

As for this week, the First Night on Friday has Paul Lewis playing Grieg’s diehard Piano Concerto; and there’s another first-rank British pianist, Benjamin Grosvenor, in a solo recital on July 16. Bartok’s dazzling Concerto for Orchestra plays July 17. And yet another British keyboard star, Sir Stephen Hough, introduces the Rachmaninov theme with the 1st Piano Concerto on July 18. Full details, and booking, at bbc.co.uk/proms

• The Proms do tend to wipe out anything approaching competition; but there are a few events elsewhere holding their own, and one is Opera Holland Park which has a new production of everybody’s favourite La Boheme running Jul 19 -Aug 5. Take tissues for the onstage emotion and wind-proof clothing for the front-of-house gales that for some reason rip through OHP’s tented auditorium when the temperature drops at night (as it does). operahollandpark.com

• Somewhere else doing battle with the Proms is Wigmore Hall where, on July 15, the immaculately turned-out Doris String Quartet (I’d like to know where they get their suits) play a no doubt comparably immaculate programme of Berg and Beethoven. And the following day, July 16, the hall gives a platform to virtuoso trombonist Peter Moore, playing Franck and Hahn. The trombone may not leap to mind as virtuosic, but with Moore you realise that it can reach beyond all expectations. Be surprised. www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/