Less than a year into his chief conductorship, Jiri Belohlavek is already making a palpable impact on the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

With its massive proportions and all-encompassing Nietzschean programme, Mahler's Third Symphony is a major challenge, and last night's performance was a triumph for conductor and players.

Belohlavek, a calm, authoritative presence, elicited well-blended ensemble playing as well as some outstanding solos, chief among which were Helen Vollam's long-breathed trombone lines in the first movement and Martin Hurrell's superbly controlled offstage posthorn solo (played on a flugelhorn) in the third.

The contrasting modes of the huge first movement - primeval, pastoral and processional - were skilfully negotiated, with a blazing eruption for the final pages. The folk-like charm of the minuet second movement and the childlike pleasures of the third, with loping rhythms suggesting the "forest animals" of Mahler's programme, were similarly affecting.

Jane Irwin's mellifluous mezzo invoked Nietzsche's sorrowful depths, and the even deeper wells of joy, with the well-drilled Choristers of Westminster Cathedral Choir and ladies of the BBC Symphony Chorus adding their angelic contributions.

In Belohlavek's hands, the profound concluding Adagio drew together all the threads, building its broad hymn-like paragraphs to a life-enhancing apotheosis.