THERE is nothing on God's earth like the sound of a dyed-in-the-wool, mainstream German symphony orchestra.

We've got the elite German and Austrian bands, the flash Americans, the elemental Nordic outfits, the raw Russians and the supremely pragmatic UK orchestras. I will have nothing to do with the elitist Germanic grading of orchestras: they're either good or they're not.

And the Dresden Philharmonic, which, with Michael Sanderling, the youngest of the Sanderling dynasty, gave a one-off concert in the Usher Hall on Monday as part of their current tour, is a superb band. The sheer weight of the string sound, enshrined in their forceful performance of Beethoven's lacerating Egmont Overture, was a testament to their own history and their broader culture.

And the incandescent account they delivered of Dvorak's New World Symphony provided further evidence of their quality, though Sanderling, like every conductor, might have attempted to do something about that universal problem: the brass section and its balance with the orchestra. Still, the performance did feature the most mellifluous, gorgeously-seductive cor anglais playing in the slow movement that I think I've ever heard. Sarah Chang's beautifully-fluid playing of the first two movements of Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto was as expressive as anyone could hope for; but not even her daredevil acrobatics in the asinine and pointless finale could justify Barber's cop-out in a piece where he tried to appease a dissatisfied sponsor. The movement is rubbish; it doesn't work.

HHHH