It's a rare occurrence when a composer has two major premieres on the same night. Such, however, was the case for Mark‑Anthony Turnage on Thursday, which saw both the London Symphony Orchestra giving the first performance of his new orchestral Speranza and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, under Vasily Petrenko, giving the UK premiere of his Cello Concerto.

Written for Paul Watkins and first heard in Antwerp last year, the latter is an engaging, if at times a low-key piece. Unusually cast in five movements, it nods, surprisingly perhaps, in the direction of Elgar, whose own Cello Concerto provided Turnage with a model for the central scherzo, with its scampering figurations. The forthright opening movement with its lurching cadenza is followed by a slow, enigmatic waltz, which seems under constant threat of dissolving into fragments. The emotional kernel of the score is an unaccompanied duet for Watkins and a solo horn, a quiet elegy of considerable nobility. Watkins performed it with understated fervour and great finesse. Timothy Jackson was the eloquent horn player, and Petrenko and the RLPO did wonders with Turnage's orchestral writing, all snappy woodwind chords and lyrical strings.

Its companion pieces were Arvo Pärt's Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten and Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony. Pärt's brief tribute, gathering in intensity as it progressed, was impeccably done. Petrenko's performance of Shostakovich's most controversial symphony, meanwhile, ranks among his finest and most uncompromising achievements. Refusing to find so much as a hint of consolation in the work, his brutal interpretation, less overtly Mahlerian than most, swivelled between unspeakable violence and sullen despair. The RLPO played as if their lives depended on it, and the sheer sonic weight of it all was at times overwhelming. Outstanding.

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