NOBODY could even remotely accuse chief conductor, Kirill Karabits, of failing to push the boundaries and challenge the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra faithful.

The decision to perform Olivier Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony on the first night of the new BSO season might have been considered by some to be a brave one.

This ten movement, 69-minute epic is not exactly everyone's cup of tea. Intensely complex, intermittently calming but in the main, impossibly chaotic and crazy, in a very ordered and organised sort of way. And immensely powerful. Think Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition on speed and multiply by 100.

But the applause at the end was rapturous leaving no doubt that the audience had appreciated something extraordinary, spectacular, off the scale and a triumph for conductor, a very big orchestra and piano soloist Steven Osborne.

This had been something special, and a piece last played by the BSO back in 1988.

In footballing terms, the evening was a musical game of two halves if ever there was one.

Before the interval Georges Bizet's Symphony in C Major, joyous, joyful and much more in the traditional comfort zone.

But the charismatic Karabits is not big on comfort zones.

By the time this new season ends in seven months time, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra will be celebrating its 125th anniversary, having been formed by Dan Godfrey in 1893.

Indeed, this promises to be some year.