The fast-rising star quite rightly has been much lauded and, notably, was voted Best Young British Performer at the 2006 Classical Brits.

In her second appearance with the BPO - and her first with the orchestra under the baton of their musical director Barry Wordsworth - she gave a masterful performance of Hummel's Trumpet Concerto in E Flat that captivated an audience whose ranks were somewhat disappointingly thinned by the pressing needs of Christmas shopping.

It was my highlight of a memorable first half that also featured the rarely heard suite from William Walton's ballet The Wise Virgins. This is a take on some of JS Bach's sacred and secular cantatas and, no doubt, thanks are due to Wordsworth, whose passion for ballet music was almost certainly influential in introducing it to many in the audience.

At the ballet's premiere in 1940, Margot Fonteyn took one of the leading roles but even that was not enough to earn it a revival, chiefly because three of the movements went missing during the chaos of the early war years.

But on listening to this impeccable interpretation by Walton, one has to state that it seems a great pity the suite does not earn wider recognition in the concert hall repertoire.

While Sheep May Safely Graze would have been familiar and welcome to many, for me it was the final movement, Praise Be To God, that will live on in the memory as a joyful and triumphal tribute to God and the trumpet, serving as the perfect hors d'oeuvre to the Balsom-Hummel feast to follow.

The second half of the programme opened with a seven-minute offering by Sussex University Professor of Music, Martin Butler, the BPO's first composer in focus.

His Fin de Siecle was commissioned by the English Northern Philharmonia in 1996 and is written in circular melodic fragments which, despite not to my taste, managed to bring me to a wondrous sense of stillness at its close. Coming towards the end of the Millennium that may well have been its purpose but whatever the inspiration, it was an unexpected bonus for this particular listener.

Completing the concert, and the BPO's first four symphonies in tribute to Beethoven was the great man's second, not one of my particular favourites but,, nonetheless, surprisingly oft-neglected.

The BPO's traditional New Year's Eve Viennese Concert comes next, while the first offering of the new year will be an unusual Friday slot on January 18 when BBC Radio 3 will be recording the concert for future broadcast.

It features the premiere of Butler's new piece written especially for the BPO, From the Fairground of Dreams, as well as Brighton resident, world renowned painist Artur Pizarro, playing the Gershwin Piano Concerto.