As they walked onstage together the picture was almost comical, veteran conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy barely coming up to the armpit of the lanky young Icelandic pianist Vikingur Olafsson.

But there was nothing comical about their partnership in Liszt's Second Piano Concerto, Ashkenazy collaborating with experienced insight, Olafsson ruminative and fiercely attacking by turns (and his thumbs must be among the most elastic in the business), taking self-possessed ownership of a work which remains bitty, for all its thematic unity.

At the top of its musicianly form, the Philharmonia responded thrillingly to the score's proto-Wagnerian orchestral writing, with full marks to the cello soloist.

Olafsson gave us a delightful encore in the shape of a miniature by Jean-Philippe Rameau. When's the last time we heard anything of that baroque master in Symphony Hall?

Both pianist and conductor had the courtesy to turn and acknowledge the audience in the choir-stalls; not all performers do that. And Ashkenazy, brimming with enthusiasm, gave virtual embraces to the entire audience and his orchestra after the two Rachmaninov works which framed this memorable evening.

The Rock, a Tchaikovskyian rarity (indeed, much admired by that composer) was warmly, engagingly delivered, with frolicsome flute and clarinet solos, and a genuine sense of ongoing narrative.

And the chant-like melodies we heard in that early work were still present in the very late Third Symphony, a terse, regretful yet visionary piece which blends the Tsarist Russia of Rachmaninov's youth with the glitzy America of his eventual exile.

Its many instrumental soli (flute again to the fore) were vividly rendered, and Ashkenazy's baton (purists who actually know nothing would carp at his technique) had the orchestra responding to every nuance of dynamic and attack.

This was a warm-hearted account from all concerned, and at the end Ashkenazy took his adoring players offstage without inflicting an encore upon us. Now that's what I like in a conductor.