The Colston Hall audience clapped the Norwegians long and hard by way of welcome – the legacy of affection dating from the days of Mariss Jansons’ tenure with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra was obvious. But they were soon nonplussed. The opener, Grieg’s own arrangement of his march, Gangar, one of the 66 Lyric Pieces, was so short as to be over before getting into its stride, the merest flash of Norwegian passport. Vasily Petrenko, their present chief conductor, had to bow to indicate, yes, that was the end.

It fell to soloist Henning Kraggerud to underline the national pride. By way of encore after his performance of Sibelius’s Violin Concerto – at his most expressive in the central movement, his Guarneri del Gesù richly resonant in its lower register – Kraggerud and the OPO’s excellent principal cellist, Louisa Tuck, played his own composition, variations with Norwegian folk inflections. Here was a natural charm to complement the Grieg.

Artistic credentials were all that counted in Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. Petrenko stamped his authority all over the work: a fine sense of lyrical line matched the clarity of structure, but most deeply engaging was his control of the changing mood and temperature. Manic, ecstatic, passionate, tender, urgent: Petrenko brought a core integrity and logic to Mahler’s outpouring of music.

He exerts control in quite an understated way, witness the adagietto, almost hypnotically slow, but the rapport with his Oslo musicians was always implicit. While solo lines were realised with great definition and style, notably those of trumpet and horn, it was the impeccable discipline and tone that emphatically reasserted the OPO’s international status.

And, by way of pointing up Mahler’s line of inheritance, Petrenko offered Schubert’s Moment Musical in F minor, arranged for strings, to close. It was a simple gesture but thought-provoking, and one that itself spoke volumes.