A good concert hall resonates differently when a great orchestra is on stage. The floor vibrates. The walls respond to a well-nourished sound by reflecting its individual timbre and blend. So it was on Sunday when the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra of St Petersburg took up residency at the Edinburgh International Festival. This must be the most-travelled, hardest-working ensemble in the world, but still its character shines through: dark strings, euphonious brass, individualistic woodwinds, richly coloured ensemble. These musicians live, breathe, sleep the same tradition, and have done so for years. In a world of creeping homogeneity, let’s celebrate them.

There was reason to do so in their pairing of Rachmaninov’s youthful one-acter Aleko with Act Three of Prokofiev’s Semyon Kotko. These scores offer top-drawer music and the Mariinsky soloists know how to transport the smell of the theatre to the concert platform. They “act” their parts through the music and react to each other – and us – as if they were in costume.