To conduct a Mozart or Bach concerto while also playing the solo part is difficult but normal, and in fact historically correct. To try the same with mature Beethoven, and particularly with his violin concerto, would seem foolhardy. There are many violin concertos with technically harder passages, but none that so challenge the soloist's poise.

It is never cool to admire a musician just for doing something difficult. But Dmitri Sitkovetsky's achievement was jaw-dropping. Certainly there were tentative moments in the first movement, and the Manchester Camerata were probably as nervous as anybody. But once things got moving they turned the piece into pure chamber music. The delicacy of the interchanges in the slow movement was magical; and in the closing passages of the last movement they generated an electricity beyond what I have ever experienced in the work. Sitkovetsky's consistently vital and assured playing was as astonishing as his consistent individuality of interpretation.

Earlier he had been both conductor and arranger, with his adaptation of Dohnanyi's Serenade for String Trio as a work for string orchestra. In its new guise, this marvellous work becomes a welcome addition to the repertory. There may be passages that are hard for an ensemble, though. The plucked lines in the second movement have the kind of shape that can be made graceful by a solo player but tended to sound pedestrian in the hands of a group of musicians concentrating on getting them together. But the warmth of the Camerata strings glowed so often that everybody must have been grateful for Sitkovetsky's imaginative, stylish arrangement of a work that is far too rarely heard.

He opened the concert, and the Manchester Camerata's new season, with a marvellously judged reading of Haydn's Symphony No 102. Sitkovestky's does not look like a normal conductor: he stands there almost like an old-style bandmaster. But every detail was made to seem effortless, and the wit of the music flowed gloriously.