There are orchestras – and then there are orchestras. The difference was immediately audible in those light, lilting strings, tripping through Schubert’s opening theme in his Fifth Symphony. It rose again in the woodwinds’ liquid beauty, free of strain and garish colours. There was the sound’s warm sheen and good nature, or to be German for a moment, Gemütlichkeit. The ensemble composure. The phrasing’s mixture of subtlety and natural ease. And the low, if improving, tally of women (2.8 per cent). It could only be the Vienna Philharmonic.

The programme came straight from the heart of the orchestra’s repertoire: Schubert and Bruckner. Daniel Barenboim, conducting, appeared equally at home. No need with such peerless musicians to micro-manage every bar. In the right hand, the baton descended with theatrical rhetoric. The left hand seemed to be stroking a Great Dane, with long, high sweeps caressing Schubert’s singing lines. Smiles and sunshine radiated from the playing – crucial in the Fifth Symphony. But the performance’s mark of true distinction lay in the subtle dynamic changes and variegated colours, so deftly interwoven. This was an orchestra on top of the world.

In a Bruckner symphony – we heard the Fourth, in its 1880 revision – stroking a Great Dane isn’t enough. You need a gluepot and pliers. Alongside much magnificence, tottering movements need saving from collapse, especially the Fourth’s finale, grand one moment, unaccountably diddly the next. Barenboim had no clinching solution for these quirks.

But it didn’t really matter. After three movements of Barenboim’s careful understanding and the richest sounds on the planet – I’ll mention just the magical horns and the double-basses plucking out the work’s heartbeat – we were already in a state of bliss.

The first movement’s sweep and ringing climaxes were exceptionally well engineered. Horses and hounds galloped through the scherzo with bright red panache; my scalp tingled. Equally impressive were the andante’s mournful tread and forest murmurs, wonderfully disturbed by a shock-wave crescendo. This was a performance with no smudges, no fog: a transforming experience.

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