THERE was no doubt about this concert. It was a celebration, an explosion of exuberance to yet another full house.

The Classic FM series does tend to err on the side of caution though there are some challenges ahead this season.

However, to combine Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony with the Haydn Trumpet Concerto – with Alison Balsom as soloist fresh from here appearance playing the same piece at the recent Last Night of the Proms – was sure to have the audience calling out for more.

Vasily Petrenko took the Beethoven Symphony at a furious pace, almost with an eye on the record books and trying to outdo the Toscanini recording of the 1950s where the whole thing’s almost over in a flash.

That said, Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra made this a very personal performance.

A stolid second movement subsided into some highly subtle pizzicato playing in the third movement, leading to what turned into a joyfully playful finale.

Prior to the symphony there was a sprightly, though robust, interpretation of Beethoven’s Overture: The Creatures of Prometheus.

More humour in the first half, with Haydn’s Symphony No 100 in G, subtitled the Military.

An elegant opening led into a frivolous performance, with only the allegretto showing any particular signs of seriousness.

Some great moments for percussion, too – called the “hit squad” in the programme notes for very obvious reasons.

But it was the refined performance by Alison Balsom which stole the show.

A brilliantly controlled cadenza in the first movement of the Haydn Trumpet Concerto led through the lyrical and, in this performance, perhaps a little introverted, slow movement and into another fun-packed finale.

Her encore was possibly the most interesting work in the whole programme.

Debussy wrote Syrinx in 1912 for solo flute but playing it on a trumpet might make the highly subtle nuances in the piece somewhat evasive. But nothing of it. Here was another finely evocative performance of a piece which is as haunting as it is brimming with mystery.