Sometimes it's the big picture in a musical performance that catches the ear. More rarely, it is a single detail which is so impressive that it embeds itself in the imagination, sealing permanently in the mind the memory of the event.

In the opening concert of the RSNO's winter season on Saturday there was such a moment. It occurred right at the beginning, as Stephane Deneve and his orchestra launched the latest and last in a series of three new works by French composer Guillaume Connesson. Entitled Aleph, the new 10-minute work attempted to simulate in music the Big Bang and the beginning of all things.

With an extraordinary thunderclap of an orchestral gesture, the opening of Aleph pierced the mind with devastating effectiveness. It wasn't just the cataclysmic explosion at the outset; it was the music that immediately followed, mind-bogglingly creating the impression of trillions of particles of musical matter flying off into space at the speed of light and in countless directions. The fact that the engaging and accessible piece developed thereafter a jazzy, minimalistic rhythmic profile seemed irrelevant. The impact, literal and psychological, lay in that instant of creation.

Otherwise, the main event of the night was the long-awaited reappearance with the RSNO of the much-loved pianist Emanuel Ax, whose golden, mature performance of Beethoven's Emperor Concerto, fuelled equally by power, passion and the most eloquent lyricism, was a masterclass in consummate pianism.

In Stravinsky's 1945 Suite from The Firebird (arguably an overlong version) Deneve's characteristic outlining of detail and refined poise of delivery perhaps inhibited some of the more atmospheric and elemental aspects of the piece.

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