Janacek, giving hope to us all, was a late starter. His splashy orchestral rhapsody Taras Bulba, completed during the First World War when he was already 60, is often described as the first work of his artistic maturity, with the great operas yet to come.

It formed the climax of the London Symphony Orchestra's Janacek Day yesterday, conducted by Mark Elder in a welcome return to the orchestra for the first time since 1982.

Based on Gogol's novel about a Cossack freedom fighter, Taras Bulba is memorable chiefly for spectacular aural depictions of martial horror, despite the vein of tenderness running through.

The LSO forces excelled in its chilling alliance of organ, chimes and screeching, belligerent brass, having first explored a more mysterious side of Janacek in the rarely heard Fiddler's Child (1914).

Four solo violas added poignant colours to this melancholy "orchestral ballad" about a dead child.

These Janacek works were certainly expertly played but the evening's triumph was an extraordinary account by Joshua Bell of Brahms's Violin Concerto, beautifully accompanied by an ideally responsive LSO.

His attention to detail, and the value he gave every note and phrase in this richly eloquent work, had one transfixed.

His phenomenal technique and musical range are always at the service of the composer. Grace and nobility dominate, rather than showy virtuosity.

That said, he had written his own striking cadenza, bringing a gypsy-like poetry and flair to the first movement.

With violinists, however perfect the left hand fingerwork, it's the bowing arm which finally determines the quality of sound.

Bell attacks the strings with the vigour and daring of an ace tennis player in a backhand slice.

Yet this was not about exciting moments, but about the integrity of the whole, a master's complete command of a masterpiece.