Notwithstanding these reservations, Avdeeva is a pianist of mastery and distinctiveness.

After a quaint and best-forgotten Bach orchestral arrangement by Elgar to begin the SSO concert, pianist Lukas Vondracek performed Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Opus 26 with spellbinding intensity, the outer movements bristling with spiky articulation and demonic energy.

This sardonic assertiveness was interleaved with lyricism in the slow movement and eerie mystery in the slower interludes of the finale. It was a rare and hugely engaging display of pianistic imagination and vitality.

After the interval, conductor John Wilson started Elgar's Symphony No. 2 in E Flat major, Opus 63 (1911) with an approach to tempo that initially seemed stiff and slightly lacking in indulgence. In the second movement, the performance broadened to expansive expressive moments, and the SSO closed the movement with gossamer delicacy.

After playful exchanges between woodwind and strings in the third movement, the finale moved from hints of the majestic quality that endeared (and still endears) listeners to the composer's First Symphony, to a twilight close of autumnal warmth that in retrospect adumbrated the sunset of Edwardian sensibility and certainty.