After the mighty choral and operatic blockbusters of Proms opening weekend, this first proper orchestral concert of the season came as something of a relief. It started with a real oddity, however.

Mahler's reorchestration of Schumann's Manfred overture does few favours to either composer. His intrusive tinkerings, ending with a clunky dialogue between winds and strings that subverts the inspiration of Schumann's troubled final bars, only detract from the work.

The disinterment of Mahler's orchestration might have worked better if the original had also been included in a programme in which musical responses to Byron's Manfred loomed large. Petrenko and his orchestra's reputation for insightful rethinking were fully vindicated by a gripping account of Tchaikovsky's 1885 Manfred symphony. Where others opt for frantic frenzy in the movement's tormented closing pages, Petrenko provided a cumulative musical power that probed much more deeply. The delicate scherzo was sparkingly articulated by the Liverpool orchestra, and the impact of the Albert Hall organ in the final movement emphasised the real architecture of the interpretation.

The Macedonian pianist Simon Trpcˇeski has just recorded Rachmaninov's second piano concerto with this conductor and orchestra, and it showed in the collective assurance here. Trpcˇeski's playing was immaculate, but Petrenko was very much the dominant musical presence, with the refinements of the orchestral writing given an unusual pride of place, and the solo part scaled back from the standard warhorse treatment.