No listener with the slightest trace of musical feeling or emotional empathy will ever forget this concert of just one work – albeit Mahler’s gigantic Third Symphony. But in the hands of Claudio Abbado and his stunning Lucerne Festival Orchestra it seemed to summon into existence a universe of pain and joy, hope and regret, inescapable mortality and transcendental love.

In four decades of Proms-going I cannot recall a more sublimely crafted or heartbreakingly beautiful performance of Mahler. I found it as overwhelming (though in an utterly different way) as Bernstein’s colossal account of the Fifth Symphony with the Vienna Philharmonic 20 years ago – and I never thought I would write that.

Where to start in listing its qualities? Inevitably, with the desperately frail, wan and pathologically self-effacing figure who inspires such affection and virtuosic endeavour whenever he steps on the podium.

Perhaps it is Abbado’s astonishing, Lazarus-like recovery from serious illness; perhaps it is his uniquely expressive conducting, his hands seeming to sculpt music out of thin air; perhaps it is his peerless way of conjuring otherworldly premonitions or a magical fervour from instrumental textures that seem mundane on paper. I could write this entire review about the extraordinary glowing warmth of the symphony’s last chord, or the breathtaking whisper of the quadruple pianissimos that Abbado dared to elicit.

Or perhaps it is his subtle, understated yet cumulatively overwhelming way of shaping phrases and pacing entire paragraphs, so that this sprawling work seemed to flow like one great stream. I don’t know. Yet what’s clear is that, in this golden autumn of his career, Abbado journeys across a plateau of Mahlerian understanding that few other conductors so much as glimpse from afar.

But his orchestra is also one of the ad hoc wonders of the world. Reconstituted each summer from the finest European instrumentalists and the brilliant youngsters of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, it responds to Abbado with matchless fluency and style.

Its soloists are superb. Trumpet, trombone, woodwinds: all produced ravishingly characterful contributions. But, overriding all that, is the sense of the players responding unselfishly to each other, as well as the maestro up front. Remarkably, this vast symphony was invested with the intimate rapport of chamber music.

Terrific singing, too, from the seamlessly lyrical Anna Larsson in Nietzsche’s midnight ruminations, and from the Trinity Boys’ Choir and London Symphony Chorus, turning this epic hymn to Nature from impenetrable darkness to radiant light. But enough! Try to catch it on the Radio 3 website.

Editor's choice

• The 100 Best Films of the Decade
• 70 facts you didn't know about Marvel
• The 50 Biggest Movies Of 2010