Stephen Hough seems able to produce a greater variety of sounds from a piano than anybody else; and it could be that Saint-Saëns's African-inspired Fifth Piano Concerto is just the right piece for him to demonstrate that skill. Whether in the effortless decorative writing of the first movement, the melancholy of the second, or the technical glitter of the finale, he never seemed to be making any effort, but simply ensured that each phrase sounded new and alive. Hough presented this apparently mindless music without a hint of condescension, and, with Yan Pascal Tortelier conducting, the balance was always miraculously clear. Such a performance leaves one with a sense of gratitude that a rarity has been given the right amount of seriousness to make it succeed.

Tortelier had opened the concert with an exceptionally sculpted reading of Debussy's Prélude à l'Après-Midi d'un Faune. The textures, particularly in the lower strings, were so carefully balanced that a work that almost counts as a warhorse was re-established as perhaps the definitive start of modern orchestration.

James MacMillan then took the podium, conducting his recent Prom commission The Birds of Rhiannon, before Tortelier returned to end the concert with Sibelius's Fifth Symphony. The context made the MacMillan sound remarkably like latter-day Sibelius: it felt as though MacMillan was doing for Celtic landscapes what Sibelius did for Nordic, in the layered orchestral colours, and in the way he articulates the grand form in this detailed work. The BBC Philharmonic responded with passion to his music, and the BBC Singers were flawless in the final section.

But perhaps everybody had given too much in what was a rather long concert, and the Sibelius ran out of steam. As before, there were marvellous details and well-judged textures, but the full impact was curiously lacking.