Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty is one of his most popular ballets and most admired scores. But how many know that in full, it lasts three hours?

Last night we had the first complete performance at the Proms, which meant the equivalent of his Fifth Symphony four times over.

Fortunately, the LSO was on duty under Valery Gergiev and from the first electrifying bars it was evident that this was going to offer a very different experience from that of a perfunctory run-through by a mediocre pit orchestra.

The score has some of Tchaikovsky's most sumptuous music and as the velvet textures of the famous Pas d'Action unfolded, with heart-swelling string melody on a cushion of brass and wind, it was difficult to imagine such music played with more passion or technical accomplishment.

But Tchaikovsky is capable of more subtle things, too, such as the Panorama with its sotto voce strings, gentle horn/wind backdrop and rippling harp, or the spellbinding sleep music with the hypnotic high C of the violins sustained for exactly 100 bars: the number of years before the princess was finally woken by the prince's kiss - quite a smacker, to judge by the crash of the tam-tam.

All this was done ravishingly, as was the evocation of the world of the Rococo in the Act 2 Scene et Danses, often cut in performance.

Not content with telling the story of the princess, Tchaikovsky brings in other favourites including Tom Thumb, Puss in Boots, Cinderella and Red Riding Hood.

This is all in the third act, after the princess has been awakened, and it is perhaps justified to begin to feel fairytale fatigue by then. Nevertheless, as a one-off, a great Prom occasion.