THEY like to open each new season at the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra with a big production number.

But there are big production numbers and there are big production numbers.

They don't come much bigger that Gustav Mahler's Resurrection Symphony.

A show-stopping epic of a tour force.

Live on Radio 3 under the baton of chief conductor Kirill Karabits and with the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus, the BSO strained every sinew to produce an utterly jaw-dropping performance.

Rarely can such unrestrained power and passion come out of a single piece of music. If so I have never heard the like of it.

It was my first time hearing this 80 minute piece live (it seemed nowhere near that time) and there was so much to absorb and process.

I believed I could hear a little of Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Mussorgsky, Elgar and Richard Strauss in the monumental composition. It may have been just my imagination or just a trick of the light.

An evening dominated by Resurrection opened with Ligeti's 11 minute Lontano, composed in 1967 and which also paid homage to the likes of Mahler.

The 2018/2019 season will mark Kirill Karabits' 10th anniversary as chief conductor of the BSO.

He will then be the longest serving conductor since a certain Dan Godfrey.

Karabits could not have wished for a better start to the season in terms of piece and performance and audience reaction.

Andy Martin