Working a century apart, Beethoven and Mahler were respectively bridges into and away from musical romanticism.

In his Third Piano Concerto Beethoven combines classical textures and procedures with dark, dramatic colourings, while Mahler in his Sixth Symphony takes those colourings and restores a classical rigour of form whilst exploring tortured expressionism of content.

Stephen Kovacevich made a welcome return visit to the CBSO as soloist in the Beethoven on Wednesday, grabbing scudding unison passage-work in iron fists, yet also commanding attention through striking pianissimo delivery rather than heroic gestures. The CBSO under Ilan Volkov supplied taut, tense collaboration.

And tautness and tension were very much the hallmarks of Volkov's reading of Mahler's epic Sixth Symphony. Making his debut with the orchestra (and in the hall), this owlish looking young man just bursts with charisma, and, in taking the wise but frequently neglected step of obeying all the meticulous markings with which the composer peppered his vast score, he secured a reading which gripped and convinced from start to finish.

So all the music's thematic cogency emerged to hold this mighty structure together, and the soundpicture imagery made wonderful effect. There was despairing glamour, inward delicacy and gritty inevitability here, conveyed through inspired orchestral playing.

But the show-off who burst into applause the instant the last despairing pizzicato sounded should have been under that hammer.

* Repeated tomorrow (7pm). Running time 2 hours 20 minutes.

Christopher Morley