City of Birmingham SO/Oramo Birmingham Symphony Hall

The Finn Sibelius and the Russian Prokofiev are not an obvious musical coupling. But the first concert in the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra's Prokofiev/Sibelius series showed that the two composers had more in common than the fact that they were born and grew up on much the same latitude.

Both had a love of dark orchestral sonorities, and to make Sibelius's Second Symphony and Prokofiev's Second Violin Concerto work, performers need to think in very long melodic spans. Russian violinist Vadim Repin is a natural when it comes to the long phrase: Prokofiev's seemingly endless lines soared and sang. The much-loved slow movement can seem frustratingly episodic, but Repin made the ideas flow effortlessly forward. His tone was full, round and intense. Perhaps there could have been more variety of colour, but it was the kind of playing that gripped the attention.

Conductor Sakari Oramo took risks in Sibelius's Second Symphony. The big climaxes of the second movement and the finale's magnificent ending were taken unusually slowly, but the tension never flagged and the orchestra followed Oramo's beat to the micro-second. Not only was each movement seen whole; the entire symphony emerged as a single drama, emotionally and intellectually compelling, and leading inexorably to that great, trumpet-capped apotheosis.

French music and culture have been hugely influential on the Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho. But listening to her fine orchestral fantasy Du Cristal it was hard to avoid comparison with Sibelius - and even Prokofiev. This is not melodic music in any conventional sense, more an extended play of textures and repeating patterns; but Saariaho also thinks in very long lines. The ear is drawn in and held as securely as in a wide- arching Prokofiev or Sibelius tune.

The capacity audience listened hard and applauded warmly - a tribute not only to the vitality of the music, but also to the CBSO's confident, enthusiastic playing.