At a time when there is no shortage of doom and gloom for classical music in Scotland, the new Perth Concert Hall can be considered a real success story. Having for years put up with the ill-equipped (though acoustically rather decent) city hall, Perth audiences now have a modern purpose-built venue. Their approval can surely be gauged by the capacity crowd that turned out to hear the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Martyn Brabbins play Elgar and Beethoven at the weekend.

If the improved facilities have come at a price, it's at the expense of the acoustic, although the trade-off is one that few will regret. The new building is a decidedly dry rather than resonant space, with clarity and immediacy taking the place of warmth and depth.

The BBCSSO's performance also suggested that it is not the most flattering of venues in which to hear the piano, as it emphasises the hard-edged, brittle quality of the sound - perhaps somewhat unfortunate given that the inaugural season is built around a Beethoven piano concerto series.

At any rate, it wasn't Nicolas Hodges's curiously detached performance of the First Piano Concerto - serious and poised rather than brilliant and engaging - that left the lasting impression, nor the grandeur of Beethoven's Consecration of the House overture (an appropriate choice to open the BBCSSO's first official concert in the hall), but a fluid, sweeping account of Elgar's Second Symphony.

This wasn't the stately Elgar of old; instead Brabbins brought energy and intensity to his interpretation through a purposeful sense of momentum that successfully conveyed the ambiguities of the work, the profound uncertainties that are never far from the surface. With responsive playing from the BBCSSO, it was a performance that held the attention throughout, suggesting the overall unity across the four-movement span.