Edward Elgar’s song cycle Sea Pictures is indelibly linked in my mind to three British singers – contraltos Clara Butt and Kathleen Ferrier and mezzo Janet Baker.

But after her appearance with Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by Donald Runnicles perhaps American mezzo Sacha Cooke should be added to my list.

This is a truly magnificent performance, the two-time Grammy Award winner showing the thrilling rich timbre of Baker, Ferrier’s superb diction and sensitivity and Butt’s powerful chest voice.

At no time is she in danger of being swamped by the large orchestra, augmented by the organ to lend some rumbling low-down grunt to the frequent stirring climaxes.

She engages her audience, stepping forward to emphasise the text or share a tender moment – “closely let me hold thy hand” from In Haven (Capri), the second song from a poem written by Elgar’s wife Alice, is an example.

Then she’ll throw back her shoulders for the ringing high notes of the last verse of English-born Australian poet Adam Lindsay Gordon’s The Swimmer, in which the narrator describes riding the ocean’s “brave white horses” – tragically and ironically written a few months before he shot himself at Melbourne’s Brighton Beach in 1870.

Her singing in the most popular of the five songs, Where Corals Lie, is memorable.

It makes you want to see her in one of her many successful operatic roles that have so impressed audiences at New York’s Met and other opera houses in America and Europe.

Sir Donald Runnicles conducts the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Photo © Craig Abercrombie/SSO

The nautical theme of the first half is launched with the stormy brass breakers of Richard Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman Overture, with its contrasting moments of serenity from Principal Cor Anglais Alexandre Oguey in the Senta’s Ballad section.

Whether Jean Sibelius’s Second Symphony has a maritime feel is open to debate, although the warm and gentle strings in the opening might be considered “lapping”.

After the success of his sweepingly romantic First Symphony, and the even greater acclaim for his defiantly patriotic orchestral prelude Finlandia, Sibelius knew he was on to a good thing with this “confession of the soul” which, over four movements and 45 minutes, covers a great deal of emotional and intellectual ground.

His mastery of orchestration, where he’s more of a mosaicist than a painter, means that each individual musician is exposed – there’s no room for error – and woodwinds, brass, strings and lone timpanist Mark Robinson are all in top form.

Runnicles’ admiration and respect for this work are evident, with finely judged tempi and a keen eye for detail. As always, he gets the best out of the SSO in what is a truly majestic reading, culminating in one of the great finales of the symphonic canon.