Japanese volinist Akiko Suwanai seemed to have a point to make about size in taking on the concerto chosen for this programme of big-hearted symphonic music.

She's not short but she's certainly not as tall as BBCNOW principal guest conductor Jac van Steen or a physical match for the weight of the orchestra assembled here for music by Sibelius and Elgar.

Yet there could have been no more robust a soloist in Sibelius's Violin Concerto, not the least quality of which is the way the forces are held in check when the fiddler is making the play.

Shapely and sweeping melodic lines, burnished richness in the depths and dazzling brilliance higher up were the hallmarks of this performance, qualities that made the case for flashiness, because this concerto is flashy. Her Bach solo encore (the first movement of his Sonata No 1) was spellbinding.

Sibelius's tone poem Tapiola was the last thing he wrote before his famous lapse into thirty years of silence. He was seen to be at his best as van Steen and the orchestra underlined the work’s essential transformation of sounds.

Elgar's The Music Makers is not less than the sum of its parts but not greater either. Elgarites love it and with good reason. It's Elgar on a self-referring roll, with material taken from his well-known compositions stitched together to make something uniquely poignant. The ending is always sublime though everywhere it was sung with especial tenderness and affection by the BBCNOW Chorus and soprano Jane Irwin. The orchestra, committed Elgarians, got the swell and the sentiment absolutely right