Years of playing as a principal clarinettist in the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra (and under the batons of the likes of Daniel Barenboim and Simon Rattle) have blessed Karl-Heinz Steffens with an ear, and an awareness of what goes on within an ensemble, which are now bringing huge rewards as he launches himself into what are still early years of a career as a conductor in his own right.

Making his third visit in consecutive seasons to the CBSO, Steffens charmed players and audience alike with an account of Mozart’s ‘Linz’ Symphony which conjured timbres breathing new life into a work we all thought we knew so well: well-coloured trumpets, characterful bassoons, nobly-shaped horns combined with strings totally secure in the exposure to which Mozart subjects them in a reading which was lively and neatly-turned.

There was a similar warmth of inner detail in the symphony at the other end of this delightful programme, Dvorak’s richly vivid Symphony no.8. Moulding his reading as if to the contours of a tone-poem rich in content, Steffens drew evocative half-shades of colour from these appreciative players. Special praise to the fearless, stirring trumpets, and the horns which brayed so riotously in the splendid finale.

Between the symphonies came added delight with the presence of Sol Gabetta, surely the most enchanting of cellists. She immerses herself totally in the music (bopping along gleefully with the orchestra when not herself playing), and naturally creating a warm empathy with her orchestral colleagues.

To Saint-Saens’ First Concerto she brought both mercurial bowing and a well-burnished tone from her fabulous Guadagnini instrument, fleet and accurate in a bravura display in which songfulness was never far away. And in the neatly-programmed encore, Dvorak’s ‘Silent Woods’, she created an atmosphere of quiet, serene concentration.