This season opener at Winthrop Hall sees WASO reunited with superb Dutch-Maltese conductor Lawrence Renes after 20 years. Perhaps even more significantly, the exciting Russian-Italian violinist Sergej Krylov here makes his WASO debut.

The program – Mozart’s Magic Flute Overture, Tchaikovsky’s D major Violin Concerto and music drawn from Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet – takes us from magical classicism through majestic romanticism to muscular diegesis in one supple, startling bound.

Renes’ reading of Mozart’s Overture to The Magic Flute is crisp and direct, WASO leaving the serene harbour of the opening chords to punch out a mercurial fugal allegro and riveting development section before returning in triumph. Guys, you have our attention.

Sergej Krylov. Portrait supplied

One of Krylov’s mentors was the famed Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. This presupposes a certain kind of musicianship straight away, without hearing a note: one built on utter devotion to craft and beauty.

And so it proves to be the case with Krylov’s Tchaikovsky. While Renes and WASO revel in the lush score, Krylov moves like a balletic prize fighter between dazzling virtuosity and penetrating lyricism. His first-movement cadenza alone filled the stage as easily...