In Saturday’s concert at Brighton Dome given by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra we were “whisked away to Sunny Spain” – according to the evening’s presenter, Petroc Trelawney. For, with the praiseworthy intention of attracting new audiences to their concerts, the orchestra has adopted a chat-show format, which included conductor Pablo Gonzalez and guitar soloist Xuefei Yang. Unfortunately, the composers were not available.

What De Falla, Turina and Rodrigo might have contributed is conjectural, but the ghost of Tchaikovsky would have plaintively cried out that when he wrote the Pathétique Symphony he had no thought of dying and no intention of the Symphony acting as his memorial.

This misleading impression which Trelawny gave encouraged the audience to emote rather than listen, gave an erroneous impression of the work’s content, lessened appreciation of the music and was a negative contribution to the evening.

And the music-making? Ironically, the most impressive moment was the ending of the Tchaikovsky when Gonzalez’s control of the audience ensured a lengthy silence when the memory of the music was allowed to resonate in the hearts of the listeners. This did more service to this glorious and tragic score than all the patter of Petroc.