Its thunderous, almost over-familiar opening few bars means the Grieg Piano Concerto has the reputation being a tempestuous and torrid piece of late romantic keyboard bashing.

In fact, much of the work – when it is heard in full – is rather reflective and pastoral in character.

These dimensions came over well in the performance by pianist Penelope Thwaites, when she was the well-received soloist for the Huddersfield Phil’s latest concert.

Of course, the Grieg still requires a high level of extrovert, virtuosic pianism, which the soloist had at her command.

But perhaps the most absorbing moments of the performance were the more lyrical passages, such as the rippling delicacy of a reflective theme in the third movement.

The Grieg was the centrepiece of an ambitious concert that began with Brahms’s Academic Festival Overture and concluded with the Symphony No 10 by Shostakovich.

The orchestra, conducted by Robert Guy, rose well to the challenge of the symphony, playing to a higher standard, I thought, than it had done during the Grieg concerto, when there had been some lapses in tuning and ensemble.

The Shostakovich throws up any number of challenges – to whole sections, to soloists and to sub-sections such as the extended and beautifully played clarinet duet in the first movement.

We also had fine contributions from horns, flutes, oboes, cor anglais and bassoons, while the strings were fully equal to the rapid passage work, especially as the symphony reached its climax.

The work has a massive dynamic and emotional range throughout and it was obvious that conductor was eager to explore this. He certainly took the orchestra, led by Mary Barber, with him. By the latter stages of the performance there was some fine orchestral playing, however fiendish the technical challenges.

As ever with a Shostakovich symphony, the tenth can be mined for autobiographical angst, principally the composer’s relationship with Stalin and the Soviet state. But it can be listened to as pure music too and its use of orchestral resources is exemplary.

The Phil served this symphony very well, collectively and individually. The performance was a good marker to the standards it can achieve.