At some point the symphonies of Gustav Mahler have gone from being a specialist taste, beloved of the cognoscenti, to a sure-fire box office certainty, which is why both the BBC SSO and the RSNO chose to open their seasons with them this autumn.

The mighty Second “Resurrection” Symphony, with its need of a chorus and two soloists as well as crucial off-stage forces of trumpets, horns and percussion and a running time approaching an hour and a half, is even more of an undertaking than the SSO’s Fifth.

At a small reception before the concert, marking the handover of the chairmanship of the RSNO’s Trustees from Dame Susan Bruce to Gregor Stewart, Mr Stewart said the work’s defining characteristic was that it was “big”. Really it is huge.

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RSNO Music Director Thomas Sondergard is a master at structuring the unfolding narrative of huge works, and this was a masterclass in conducting, his attention to every detail – including those offstage players watching him on a monitor screen – never flagging.

At the start he was visibly looking for more intensity from the basses – a section at last approaching full staff strength – and that quest for expression, rather than simply power and volume was constant. It helps that this is now an RSNO with very few vacancies and a well-established core of musicians with eloquent soloists everywhere.

Alongside soprano Julie Roset and mezzo Linda Watson, the star on the night was first trumpet Chris Hart whose burnished tone was the other main solo voice, although leader Maya Iwabuchi was also on superb form.

Roset and Watson, the former making her RSNO debut, were well-matched and perfectly placed amongst the musicians, next to the harps. A lot of thought had gone into the staging of the concert with the RSNO Chorus singing seated to begin with before standing for the work’s climax. As well as being in the printed programme, the text was projected in surtitles, as at an opera, and relayed in British Sign Language by animated interpreter Amy Murray.

It was only in that vast Resurrection statement that some details of the score – Michael Bawtree’s organ and the tolling bells – did not quite cut through, but there was so much else going on that the ecstatic capacity audience was unperturbed by that.