The Silver Violin of Nicola Benedetti is, ironically in the context of this programme, probably strung with steel strings emanating from an industrial process.

However, pouring sweet tones from her recently loaned £6 million, ‘golden-age’ Gariel Stradivarius is something Benedetti does with ravishing elegance.

In a riveting performance of Korngold’s Violin Concerto, the lavishly romantic opening was aptly touched with sensuous playing.

Much of the music is based upon various film scores by the composer and in the cadenza Benedetti brought an effectively edgy tonal quality.

The middle movement oozes Romance in flowing fairy-tale felicities against a wonderfully delicate backdrop from the BSO under Kirill Karabits.

The finale’s exhilarating virtuosity employs a tune from the film The Prince and the Pauper in which Benedetti picked up on the dashing playfulness with a tingling sense of fun.

Oh for the cosy amour of an iron foundry! Well, maybe not, for Prokofiev’s Symphony No2 is more about the content of armour and Karabits, in his honest and droll “sit back and relax” introduction cited Prokofiev as provocative; pushing orchestra and audience “to the limits” in a “rollercoaster” of iron and steel.

Karabits had the insight to draw many musical elements from this melting pot of brutal energy and raucous mechanical power.

Relief appears to come in the second part with a lyrical theme and variations. By variation four haunting solos and a howling crescendo opened the doors on the fifth variation’s fiery foundry and a subsequent tutti assemblage of clangourous coruscation closed lyrically.

Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture was a superb reminder of tragic romance at its very best.