A Vancouver Symphony Orchestra presentation. At the Orpheum Theatre on Saturday, March 29. Continues on March 31, April 5, and 7

There’s a downside to presenting chronological surveys of the great composers: not all gods are born that way.

Consider Sergei Rachmaninoff, the focus of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra’s first annual Spring Festival. Although he later achieved Holy Trinity status as a composer, pianist, and conductor, Rachmaninoff’s initial attempt at the symphonic form was so critically reviled that it sent him into a three-year slough of despond, relieved only after intensive psychotherapy and the subsequent success of his Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor.

It’s probably instructive that VSO music director Bramwell Tovey chose not to include the Symphony No. 1 in D Minor in his Spring Festival programming, which kicked off almost 117 years to the day after that work’s disastrous debut. And it’s worth noting that the Symphony No. 2 in E Minor, which closed opening night, has been subject to numerous revisions, most aimed at trimming its hour-long length to a more manageable 35 minutes or so. What we got on Saturday was the original, however—for better or for worse.

Better, I think, in that it let us hear the work as the young Rachmaninoff had intended; for those planning to attend the four-concert series in its entirety, this will help contextualize the Russian legend’s subsequent output. Otherwise it’s clear that the revisionists were right: the Symphony No. 2 is repetitious, lacks forward momentum, and comes to an arbitrarily abrupt conclusion. Even a typically forthright performance from Tovey and the orchestra couldn’t paper over the work’s structural problems—although I’m willing to admit that this listener, at least, might have been listening wrong.

While I was paying attention to melodic development, in their entertaining post-concert Q&A both Tovey and guest pianist Alexander Gavrylyuk stressed that the work is really all about timbral variation and orchestral colour—an interesting and even enlightening analysis. But it’s still a case of Rachmaninoff identifying and messing with techniques that he’d later use to greater effect.

The other major piece on the bill, the Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp Minor, is also very much a young composer’s offering. In fact, it was the first of Rachmaninoff’s compositions deemed worthy of an opus number, having been written when he was just 18—and you can hear it, too. Any young man with an outsized gift wants the world to know about it, and this Edvard Grieg–inspired outpouring puts the piano front and centre, with the orchestra in a purely supporting role.

In a word, it’s showy, and Gavrylyuk put on an outstanding show, managing to lose himself in the music even as he struck some appropriately dramatic poses—body leaning well back, eyes closed, hands poised to descend upon Rachmaninoff’s resplendent cadenza. I’ve rarely been so impressed by music that moved me so little. Nonetheless, Saturday’s performance bodes well for the remaining concerts in the series, which will feature Gavrylyuk in such masterworks as the ultra-Russian Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor and the truly dazzling Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.