Orchestral concerts consisting of a single work focus the mind on more than core musical matters.

In the case of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony performed by a promising young conductor such as the BBCNOW’s Thomas Sondergard, there’s the question of empathy.

The arrival of every new principal conductor of a BBC house orchestra is trumpeted at full volume and often in ‘new messiah’ terms.

It’s usually unmerited until we see some results, and for various reasons at the Beeb the new man is unlikely to be conducting his orchestra on every occasion.

That said, Sondergard’s view of an older man’s resigned farewell to a world that hadn’t always treated him kindly gave us further reason to expect that something will come of the union.

The Ninth is monumentally built and stuffed with conflicting emotions. It was to Sondergard’s credit that he made sense of them individually, in particular the peasant-dance origins of the second movement and those tense episodes elsewhere that foreshadow the coming century of new music.

More than anything else, he managed a thorough if sometimes hurried overview of a work that can be held up by its intricate involvements, always in Mahler a lengthy but necessary diversion from the main musical route.

As at many other Mahler concerts, the audience was ecstatic, this time before a note was sounded as well as at the end, an indication of the following this orchestra now enjoys whenever a significant musical experience is in prospect. Fine conducting, captivating sounds.