THE BSO’s Living Tradition series paid homage to Walton and Vaughan Williams, both of whom conducted their own works with our orchestra.

Lawrence Power’s performance of Walton’s Viola Concerto conveyed all of its contemplative nature with faster episodes infused with a hint of jazz.

The exuberance of the central movement engaged soloist and orchestra in virtuosic exchanges and the finale’s jaunty rhythms and tensions faded into silence, leaving just the memory of a brilliant violist.

Adding yet another milestone to the BSO’s roster of composer-conductors, James MacMillan directed two of his own works.

Three Interludes from his opera The Sacrifice (a Welsh West Side Story) has genuine lyrical strength with percussive power and talkative tensions. This is a work that should enjoy similar popularity to Britten’s Four Sea Interludes.

Pulchritude in Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis with MacMillan conjuring passionate, richly focussed strings.

Paced for a cathedral acoustic but in lieu of that benefit, the subtle nuancing and magical delicacy was breathtaking.

Persecution, literally breathtaking, in MacMillan’s The Confession of Isobel Gowdie had the BSO rising to the boil in the excruciating musical cauldron of injustice.

Man’s predilection for extremist viewpoints and their incomprehensible consequences found a new, awesome outlet in a tsunami of sound.