Barry Douglas was the celebrity pianist engaged to fill the BSO’s Wednesday slot; a challenge that did not fill the hall and possibly occasioned the anvil-like resonance of Beethoven’s mighty Hammerklavier Sonata.

The opening theme gave credence to its epithet; striking, as if a blacksmith’s art were at its heart, in the heat of the moment rapid, accurate blows showered sparks of notes across the auditorium.

Placing the themes back into the fiery Scherzo raised the temperature to near white heat and then, in the Adagio, plunged into the deep, dark cooling waters of introspection.

The musings were personal yet proclaimed by Douglas with strength of voice that maybe reflected upon the composer’s deafness and nobility of spirit touched by moments of angst.

The finale hesitantly formed ideas as to the work’s ultimate shape, ornate and wrought through a fugal furnace with iron resolve and searing stamina.

Mussorgsky’s musical animation of elements in Hartmann’s paintings provided the basis for his Pictures at an Exhibition. Douglas’s palette of bold colours gave life to each of the ten artworks, perambulating breathlessly between them.

The troubadour outside The Old Castle was sensitively evoked, the weight of the rumbling ox cart in Bydlo and the frenetic Limoges Market Place all brilliantly conveyed.

The Catacombs were darkly imposing and eerily explored, yet the scary Hut on Fowl’s Legs could not intimidate Douglas, and by the Great Gate of Kiev we knew this was not just another great performance: it was astonishing, audaciously astonishing.