This is a program of absolute winners, as indicated by the full house at the Concert Hall.

The concert opens with Leoš Janáček’s Sinfonietta, with its nine extra trumpets placed in the choir stalls behind the orchestra. This work is the pinnacle of the Czech composer’s late blooming. It was written in 1926, two years before his death, but there is nothing valedictory about it. The Sinfonietta is as vivid and purposeful as ever, full of idiosyncratic orchestral effects.

Janáček uses his usual system of motif repetition – his scores are packed with “repeat” signs – building the work from the ground up with these musical building blocks. The contrast between them can be sudden: one moment the ‘building block’ is a folksy tune, a ferocious brassy rhythm, or a string-laden passage of pure lyricism.

As you might expect from someone who conducts Wagner’s Ring cycle, Simone Young keeps the large forces and sectional form firmly under control. She takes a more lyrical approach with the early brass passages than I have heard before. String colours are particularly lovely, as they are throughout the entire concert, and the...