With the Birmingham Festival Orchestra you get exactly what it says on the tin. A festival is a rare occurrence, and these players in fact only get together once a year; and the standard of their performance is such that there is plenty to feel festive about.

Jamie Phillips, now assistant conductor of the Halle (their youngest-ever), assembles past student contemporaries, erstwhile buddies from the National Youth Orchestra, and word-of-mouth recommendations to get together and blitz through minimal rehearsals of major works.

This time around the biggie was Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, and the result was stunning, the BFO playing with a maturity of tone and phrasing which would be the envy of many longer-established ensembles. Phillips is to be congratulated upon the sheer professionalism and genial persuasiveness of his approach -- and he certainly knows when not to use his left hand (Sir Adrian Boult would be proud of him).

We had begun with Lutoslawski’s Cello Concerto, Phillips’ players alert and efficient in its tricky scoring, and empathetic collaborators with soloist Ulrich Heinen, whose quiet, self-absorbed ruminations drew upon a huge range of colours and articulations. There must have been plenty of virtuosity on display here, but what emerged as paramount was the sheer musicality of Heinen’s reading.

And musicality lay at the heart of Jamie Phillips’ account of the Mahler,paul the BFO responding to this monumental work with enthusiastic generosity and an impressive command of technique. Certainly there was the occasional loss of nerve, but such moments went for nothing in the context of the overall sweep of this reading.

Phillips chose swiftly-flowing tempi, impetus all of a piece, and he coaxed his principals to listen to each other in Mahler’s often chamber-music textures. Particularly admirable was the nobility of the horns (what a leader they had!) and the precision of the percussion section, the famous hammer-blows in the finale having just the right doom-laden thud Mahler demanded.

But -- and this is a huge one: Phillips tinkered with the order of the inner movements, putting the slow movement second. That balm comes too soon this way round. We need to have been pounded into terror by two movements of relentless A minor, finding solace at last in the E-flat serenity of the andante before the unforgiving finale swirls us back into A minor.

Mahler realised this at the end of his life, and I have publicly taken issue with Simon Rattle over his misguided movement-order (we stopped dinner-party conversation as we amicably crossed swords). I would happily do the same with Jamie Phillips, whose talent I respect immensely.