Next year we will be hearing a lot of Prokofiev - 2003 is the 50th anniversary of his death - but the BBC Symphony Orchestra are already stuck into their cycle of his seven symphonies. Completed in 1925, the Second Symphony is not the finest; the relentless rhythms of the first movement are firmly under the spell of The Rite of Spring, and there is little here that was not done better by Stravinsky 10 years previously or by Prokofiev himself a decade later. Still, the calmer second movement has passages of the kind of sinister beauty that characterises so much of his greatest music, and under Paavo Berglund the orchestra played it persuasively.
Prokofiev was himself aware the symphony had flaws - its premiere, he said, was "the first time it occurred to me that I might be destined to be a second-rate composer". So he would be relieved to know that his reputation today is more solidly built on works such as his masterly pair of violin concertos, of which the second was given a dazzling performance by the young soloist Nikolaj Znaider.
If Kennedy is the bad boy of the violin, Znaider might be the one you could take home to your granny. His manners are impeccable - he defers to Berglund's tempos, smiles at the leader, applauds the orchestra. A woman hands him a red rose as he takes his bow; he says thank you and stops to have a little chat.
He is also an outstanding violinist. His playing was never less than beautiful and had a strong sense of purpose. And even in the broadest passages of the Andante there was no danger of his rich, expansive sound being overwhelmed. The final movement seemed to be kept at a canter by Berglund when Znaider might have liked to break into a gallop, but there was no loss of momentum in Znaider's playing.
Berglund has long been associated with the works of Sibelius, and his understated account of Symphony No 7, full of muscular string passages and teeming, primordial scales, was superbly paced. Seeing him direct the orchestra seated made one realise how other conductors rely on much more than their arms; but, bar one or two minor smudges of ensemble, his upper body seemed more than enough.
