Let’s get the negative stuff out of the way first. Don’t worry: it has nothing to do with the performance, which was sublime in every respect. It has more to do with the admittance of latecomers during the (in this case very short) break between the symphony’s first movement and the rest of the work.

Ideally, a lockout policy should have been implemented. Failing that, tardy patrons should quickly have been shown to the most convenient seats available at the ends of aisles (there weren’t many to be sure, but enough) and not forced to take their correct mid-row seats by officious ushers. The spectacle I witnessed right in front of me, which took place after the symphony had already resumed, was highly disruptive and totally avoidable (I note from his review of this concert that my colleague at The West Australian, Neville Cohn, is in complete agreement with me).

Anyway, now that I’ve got that off my chest one could say it’s hard to believe this was WASO Principal Conductor Asher Fisch’s first Mahler Two. Not only that, he conduct it from memory; his mastery of both the work’s massive architecture and its often exquisite minutiae was nothing short of miraculous.

But...