Past difficulties in developing devoted audiences for the works are understandable. Built on diverse strands - febrile terror, radiant optimism, nature's harmony, to name a few - conductors are faced with the Frankenstein challenge of bolting together these disparate parts into a convincing whole, either within individual movements, requiring a quicksilver sensitivity, or across the whole symphony, demanding an insightful understanding of Mahler's overall blueprint.

Jaap van Zweden was the scheduled conductor for this concert but had to withdraw after injuring his shoulder. So in came replacement Vassily Sinaisky, who proved that clouds don't always carry silver linings.

This was one of the least cultured interpretations of Mahler's Symphony No. 5 that I can recall. The writing was on the wall in the opening minutes, when Sinaisky let all the decibels out of the bag, the first of many similar blasts throughout the performance that quickly lost their force and structural significance. He set the opening (Funeral March) at such an impatient speed that it made nonsense of the title. The dissipating tension repeated across all five movements.

The first three fell short of the clarity needed to highlight the plethora of melodic strands, with distinguished solos from Jiang Lin (horn) and Joshua MacCluer (trumpet) underscoring how much the rest of orchestra was being underutilised.

Tchaikovsky's Suite No. 4, opened the programme. It received a poised, polished performance but, written as an exercise to promote some of Mozart's lesser known works, it's now an educational anachronism. If you don't know the piece, don't fret - you're not missing much.