"Imagine that the universe begins to vibrate and to sound ..." With the massive volume of organ chords, voices and orchestra reverberating through the very fabric of St David's Hall and its packed audience, Mahler's description of the opening of his Eighth Symphony seemed anything but fanciful. Only the most hard-hearted could fail to respond to the epic force set in motion here.

For this performance by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conductor Richard Hickox assembled a lavish line-up, with City of Birmingham and Bristol choral forces joining the Welsh voices and a team of soloists - Elizabeth Connell, Susan Bullock, Pamela Helen Stephen, Sara Fulgoni, Gail Pearson, John Daszak, Peter Mattei and Matthew Best - whose rich corporate sound could match that of a full chorus. In the first movement, a setting of the medieval hymn Veni, Creator Spiritus, Connell's soprano, soaring easily above hundreds of voices, was thrilling. And the entry of the City of Birmingham Symphony Youth Chorus came as a bright aura at the outer edge of an already glowing spectrum of vocal colour. In the second movement, where Mahler's setting of the final scene of Goethe's Faust makes love the crucial factor in life's equation, it was the impassioned singing of the soloists, notably baritone Mattei as Pater Ecstaticus, that made this occasion something special.

Hickox was a positively galvanising force on the podium, but this work is not simply about scale. Perhaps more affecting than the colossal choruses was the intimacy of the second movement's opening orchestral prelude, and the quiet rapture of the pianissimo choral passages.

The decision to take an interval between the two movements was questionable, because some of the impact clearly dissipated. But it did offer the rare opportunity to open the evening with Richard Strauss's Festival Prelude. This triumphant celebration of St David's Day impressed the ordinary listeners as much as the assembled great and good.