Andris Nelsons and the CBSO, Leeds Town Hall THE love affair of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra with their dynamic young Latvian-born music director Andris Nelsons, is sadly drawing to an end. From next autumn, Nelsons is obliged to focus on his new post as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Add pianist Stephen Hough to the equation and the result seemed like a collaboration made in heaven.

Nelsons conducts with big expressive gestures, sometimes putting down the baton and sculpting a phrase with both hands to get exactly the sound he wants. In Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No 3 in C minor, the strings were rich and sinewy; Hough’s colouring of phrases were utterly beguiling. In Rachmaninov’s hour-long Symphony No 2 in E minor – without cuts – Nelsons distils the turgid sentimentality from the score. His speeds are on the fast side but textures are carefully layered. Nelsons pulled out all the stops for the final movement to set the seal on a performance of jaw-dropping brilliance.

by Geoffrey Mogridge