If there were a world cup for orchestras, it would definitely have to be held in late summer. Now's the time when the planet's premier philharmonics follow hard on the heels of each other around Europe's music festivals. At the Proms in the past fortnight, for instance, we've heard the Berlin, Oslo and New York Philharmonics in quick succession - with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Paris Orchestra appearing this week. It's much the same story at the Salzburg, Lucerne and Edinburgh festivals. All of which begs an obvious question. What's the current pecking order among the world's top orchestras?

There are three cynical responses to that. The first is that, since everyone hears everyone else's recordings, modern orchestras sound much the same as each other. The era when you could tell an orchestra's nationality or even identity from the weight of its string sound, or the wobble on its woodwind, is past. The second is that any orchestra is only as good (or bad) as the maestro waggling the baton. And the third is that, since the most famous orchestras have the wherewithal to lure the best baton-wagglers, they will always be top dogs - just as, in football, it's proving almost impossible to dislodge big-spending Chelsea and Man Utd from the top of the Premier League.

True, true and true again. Yet over the past decade I've heard many of the world's top 100 orchestras, and I'm surprised by how often I'm surprised. That's either because a supposedly “Ivy League” outfit hasn't set my pulse racing (Vienna and New York are two recent instances), or because a venerable orchestra that seemed past its prime has been reinvigorated, usually by a forceful new hand on the tiller (Chailly at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Gergiev at the Maryinsky and Pappano at Rome's Santa Cecilia Orchestra fall in that category), or because a band has come from nowhere - like an unfancied nag at the Grand National - and stunned me with its spirit.

The most obvious instance of that is Gustavo Dudamel's Simón Bolivar Youth Orchestra. Let's hope that the increasingly intensive marketing of those dazzling Venezuelan youngsters doesn't spoil them. But I'd also point to the Hallé Orchestra's world-class performances under Mark Elder, or the Bamberg Symphony's progress under the Englishman Jonathan Nott, or the glowing reviews recently won by Zurich's Tonhalle Orchestra.

It's 50 years since I first knowingly heard an orchestra (on my dad's crackly 78s of Toscanini conducting his dazzling NBC Symphony Orchestra, since you ask). But my excitement at encountering a great symphonic ensemble in full cry hasn't diminished one whit. The five orchestras whose names currently send the biggest tingle down my raddled old spine? They are the Berlin Philharmonic (forget all that nonsense about Rattle “diluting” their dark, fierce power); the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, which is as gilded and glorious as ever under Mariss Jansons; Claudio Abbado's Lucerne Festival Orchestra; Dudamel's Simón Bolivar Orchestra; and, when properly fired-up and prepared, our own LSO.

Perhaps, however, I've overlooked some phenomenal philharmonic toiling away in undeserved obscurity in a hall near you. Do let me know, and I promise to pass on the good news.

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