IS Prokofiev’s Symphony No3 classical music’s answer to Heavy Metal? Even the players’ usual warm-up indicated this was not going to be a walk in Paradise.

The piece in question is the composers’ reworking of music from his opera the Fiery Angel and it’s fair to say that conductor Kirill Karabits pulled no punches in this live BBC Radio 3 broadcast. The finale itself was cataclysmic, and that glass-shattering opening to the first movement cracked the heavens asunder. There were less frenetic episodes here, and through the Andante disturbing elements were readily discerned. The Allegro agitato third movement with its oft-divided strings shrieked its diabolic origins with total conviction.

Denis Kozhukhin, the formidable protagonist in Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No4, has all the required virtuosity to run the rigours of the outer movements. It is the orchestra that holds the melodic initiative while the soloist decorates and embellishes. The central movement’s repeated, tranquil lyricism gives understated respite and the finale’s fleet-of-foot cartoonish dash simply serves to highlight the considerable demands on soloist, orchestra and conductor to keep it all together.

Diaghilev famously rejected his commission La Valse from Ravel as ‘not a ballet, but a portrait of a Ballet’. Maybe it’s a portrait of a waltz viewed from the composer’s highly imaginative perspective and touched with an impish sense of devilry. Karabits and his forces easily captured this swirling Viennese dance and, as demanded, brought it crashing down as if sending it to oblivion.