A SLIGHTLY different approach to the amazing concert given on Thursday by the BBC SSO.

I hope chief conductor Donald Runnicles and the young genius of the keyboard, Denis Kozhukhin, wouldn't mind, but I'm going to borrow their thunder and give it to the band.

Behind every great man, it used to be said, stands a woman. And in front of every great conductor and soloist, sits an orchestra.

Gavin Reid, SSO director, made a reference to the "humble origins" of the SSO. I feel over the past 30 years I have been with them through thick and thin. Steadily, with a variety of chief conductors, they have developed and refined. The ensemble they are today bears little resemblance to that of the distant past.

And what they did on Thursday, with electric presence and high-voltage playing, confirmed again the near-shocking standard and quality they have achieved; and it could be heard anywhere through the Radio 3 live broadcast. It's beyond debate: it's a broadcasted fact. Their fluid and unshakeable accompaniment of Kozhukhin in Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto, with Runnicles at his most supple, was infinitely responsive in its integrity of ensemble. How they do that is beyond analysis.

The power and passion with which they played for Runnicles in his blindingly committed view of Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem (the view of a conductor, I suspect, who believes the work is a masterpiece) frankly pinned me to my seat and drained the emotional energy out of me.

Then all that energy flooded back in a stunningly characterised account of Shostakovich's waspish Ninth Symphony. A great night for the SSO, the music, and the listeners too.

HHHHH