After supplying a few instrumentalists for the opening concert, this was the only full appearance by Scotland’s national orchestra at this year’s Edinburgh International Festival, so it was good to see the Usher Hall well filled for a bold programme of three concertos of relatively recent vintage under the baton of former Principal Guest Conductor Elim Chan.

The last of these showcased the whole of the RSNO and revisited a work she and the orchestra performed for the cameras during the difficult pandemic years of social distancing. Perhaps there is a phenomenon we might call Covid concentration, because the players really sounded to have Lutoslawski’s Concerto for Orchestra under their fingers – especially the strings, but with terrific contributions from the brass section as well.

The epic final movement is when the work really impresses and Chan was in complete control of the dynamics of its complex structure and brought the piece, and the entire evening, to a thrilling climax.

We had begun almost as dramatically, with the trumpeting elephant call that opens the Trumpet Concerto by Wynton Marsalis. Soloist Alison Balsom is making this work her own – at least on this side of the Atlantic. As you would expect from the composer, it is filled with blues and jazz influence, but as a player Marsalis also performed the trumpet’s classical repertoire as a young man so his work is designed to demonstrate everything it is capable of.

That required two instruments and a full range of mutes, employed in swift succession in the sultry fourth movement, which is full of conversational exchanges with members of the orchestra. It follows a Latin section that epitomises the whole concerto’s playful approach to rhythm and time signatures, and the work culminates in a bugle or cornet style with increasingly busy contributions from the five-man percussion section, and a false ending before a final flurry mirrors the opening.

Just as virtuosic was the mid-20th century masterpiece in between – the 1942 Piano Concerto by Arnold Schoenberg, whose 150th birthday is less than a month away. French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard champions the piece, as the well-thumbed score he brought to the piano suggested, although describing it as “an odd work”.

Hugely demanding of the soloist, it is also a great showcase for an orchestra and the RSNO played it quite brilliantly, while Chan shaped its meticulously-constructed arc with assurance.

Composed during the composer’s exile in the US, the work explores his life experience, starting in Vienna and including the Nazi threat that forced him to flee. The 12-tone technique that Schoenberg pioneered is integral, but there is a singular narrative drive to what is a compact and captivating work.