EMERGING from the concert hall from this thrill-a-minute Brahms bonanza, I felt as though I had been bathed, scrubbed and firmly towelled in all those gorgeous harmonies and highly charged emotions.

In the absence of an indisposed Thomas Dausgaard the welcome afforded to conductor Kees Bakels was typically enthusiastic.

The evergreen authority of John Lill clearly craved no indulgence from Bakels as they united in their quest to explore the ecstatic scale of Brahms’ Piano Concerto No2. Such wonderful melodies, hurled with Herculean power from the Steinway, a coalition of protagonists each reinforcing the other’s statements.

The demands of the second movement were no less impassioned, touched with Lill’s penetrating fingerwork. The cello solo from Jesper Svedberg opening the Andante offered tenderness to which Lill responded, taking the spotlight, building tension and resolving in dreamy serenity. A generally lighter vein pervades the finale; a playful romp through many melodies: a softening spa.

Then Brahms’ Symphony No2. Paradoxically pastoral, set amongst massive peaks of energy and stormy precipitations.

Bakels had them all in hand, imparting affectionate playfulness to the third movement’s melodies and drawing the organically conceived threads together in the finale’s flow of dynamic contrasts and triumphant vigour.

Beethoven pre-empted the drama with his Overture: Egmont. Bakels called for an impressively aggressive tonal edge from the strings, packing in every nuance of spectacle, a precursor to Egmont’s victorious death.