There should be a UN resolution banning Russian orchestras from playing Brahms — for their own good as much as ours. In the 40 minutes that the St Petersburg Philharmonic took to hack through the Second Symphony, its reputation slithered downhill like a runaway troika. Then the Russians produced a bizarre arrangement of a little Schubert piano piece as an encore. Not a good night for lovers of the Austro-German classics .

The symphony started badly, with a fluffed horn solo, and worsened. Two minutes later, Yuri Temirkanov’s beat — a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma at the best of times — seemed to send different signals to different parts of the orchestra, and one crucial woodwind phrase went absent without leave.

Thereafter the notes were in place, but the phrasing clumpy, the woodwind unblended and frequently untuneful, and the St Petersburg strings — usually one of the great glories of the music world — forced to scramble at speeds that put a severe strain on intonation and rapport.

Enough! Another Brahms Two will be along in a minute, so no lasting harm was done. More worrying was the playing in a suite from Prokofiev’s Cinderella. With its brooding waltz tune, scampering scherzos and climactic caricature of what seems like every clock in Russia striking midnight, this is a score that cries out for a sardonic touch and surging orchestral power. To an extent, that’s what it got. Yet the attack was never sharp, nor the slower passages invested with much character. The impression was of an orchestra coasting, or perhaps not rehearsed hard enough.

At least the soloist in Rachmaninov’s Paganini Rhapsody was out to dazzle. Denis Matsuev, like many young Russian pianists, could never be accused of reticence. The Steinway takes a hell of a pounding, even in places where you suspect that Rachmaninov might have wanted the orchestra to be heard. But his technique is phenomenal: blistering passagework, steely chords. Perhaps he is the new Horowitz. His encore, Grigori Ginzburg’s outstandingly tasteless but breathtaking transcription of Rossini’s Largo al factotum, certainly suggested the same penchant for outrageous showmanship.