Marta Gardolinska sent her apologies from Vienna.

And heartfelt apologies they really were.

“I cannot explain,” she wrote in the programme notes for Grosvenor Plays Chopin, “how sad I am to not be able to be with you tonight back in Poole with the brilliant BSO and a beautiful concert that I had planned.”

The BSO’s Young Conductor, hampered by the current travel restrictions, need not have worried.

Her beloved Polish compatriot Chopin and his Piano Concerto No 1 were in the very safest hands with the charismatic Gergely Madaras returning to the podium for a second week and soloist, Benjamin Grosvenor, BSO artist-in-residence, at the Steinway.

If being totally overwhelmed by the absolute beauty of a piece of music and the performance is not uncommon, then this was most definitely one of those evenings.

Grosvenor was sublime and spellbinding with Chopin’s epic, which lays bare the heart and soul of Poland and speaks to its triumphs and achievements as well as to the sadness and tragedy, much of which we know all too well from the 20th century, long after the concerto was written.

Grosvenor received rapturous applause at the end and all the members of the audience knew they has been immensely privileged to share the experience. It seemed as though the players did too, as they also showed their appreciation for this special talent.

The evening opened with the little known but immensely joyous Overture in C by Fanny Mendelssohn, brother of Felix.

The piece lay gathering dust in the archives for more than a century before being republished in 1994.

The concert concluded with Haydn, always sheer delight.

His popular Symphony No 88 is brilliantly inventive, captivating throughout and takes us to a rousing and rip-roaring finale. This Austrian never fails to lift the spirits, as indeed neither does the BSO.