Petrenko deftly shaped this hour-plus, eventful journey of the spirit. The expansive first movement had terrific tension, which he heightened by unleashing the BSO’s substantial power during the waves of percussion crescendos and shrieking brass (Shostakovich's use of this threatening effect seems to have been inspired by a similar one in Mahler’s Symphony No. 2). Petrenko drove the second and third movements hard, maybe too fast for their own good, but the effect had a startling intensity.

Speaking of fast and intense, Tchaikovsky’s overly flogged warhorse headed out of the gate with a refreshing vigor and absence of sentimentality. Hough (left), the widely admired British pianist, tore into the concerto in a way that may well have horrified some listeners. I think he even managed to outdo speed demon Martha Argerich when it came to octave whirlwinds.

Well, I’ve always been of the (probably unsound) mind that nothing can be played too fast — or too slow. But what typically happens when pianists want to rip up this work is that they go for both extremes in one sitting, constantly pulling the tempo every which way to apply an interpretive stamp. Hough would never stoop to that sort of thing. What he did was simply take the concerto out of its mushy romantic nest and treat it like a great work that combines bravura with un-sticky lyricism. The proportions were always sensible, and that made all the difference.

Hough left some notes in the dust, but the electricity he produced as he charged ahead had an almost giddy effect — I’m sure I wasn’t the only one smiling in the hall. For the most part, Petrenko and the orchestra got tightly into the soloist’s brisk groove. This kind of music-making — unpredictable, risky, fearless — is as rare as it is exciting. It’s what keeps us coming back to concert halls, even to such familiar repertoire as the Tchaikovsky concerto.

The chance to savor unfamiliar repertoire is another enticement, of course, and that came in Lyadov’s 1909 Kikimora, an evocation of a Russian fairy tale about an evil spirit. It’s a colorful little work, with traces of Paul Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, and Petrenko had it flowing with lots of character.

Although there was plenty of fine playing from the orchestra (Jane Marvine’s English horn solos in the Lyadov and Shostakovich works were particularly sensitive), Thursday wasn’t necessarily the ensemble’s best night, technically speaking. There were occasional lapses of articulation, some loss of string tone (in the Tchaikovsky concerto), fuzzy patches in the woodwinds and brass. But this was one of those occasions when the feeling was so right, the commitment so strong that the details mattered less than the big, involving picture.

If we're lucky, BSO management will sign up Petrenko -- and Hough -- for return engagements before they leave town.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF BSO