The BBC Philharmonic and its conductor laureate Yan Pascal Tortelier celebrated the centenary of William Walton with a programme commencing with the Spitfire Prelude and Fugue. Composed for Leslie Howard's wartime film The First of the Few, it made for a dynamic opening. The initial fanfare was delivered with relish by the brass section. Yet this performance was not just about pomp. A soft interlude intended to represent the terminally ill inventor RJ Mitchell's determination to continue work on the Spitfire was a moment of humanity amid the patriotism.

Walton's Cello Concerto, like Elgar's, is full of introspective solo passages that require the highest level of virtuosity. Tortelier's management of the slow first movement resembled a ticking clock marking the inexorable passage of time; later he emphasised the turbulent undertones of Walton's orchestration. Cellist Guy Johnston breezed through it. In a long section for cello only, in the immense final movement, his display of harmonics, double-stopping and pizzicato immersed within Walton's elegiac expressions were breathtaking. The role for solo cello climaxed in a passage resembling both a Bach invention and a Haydnesque cadenza, and the fading moments of the concerto, with Johnston sustaining his instrument's lowest C, were spellbinding. Walton's work may not be on a level with Elgar or Dvorak, but this performance made a very persuasive case for it.

The Sinfonia Concertante for orchestra with piano continuo is a precocious and entertaining work crammed full of compositional tricks. Pianist Steven Osborne took centre stage with playing both exact and energetic, yet this rarely heard work is not intended to be a spotlight for the "soloist", but a bristling integration of the piano with the hyperactive orchestral texture. Its cheerful jazz-tinged finale was a sharp contrast with the more ambiguous and uncompromising Walton demonstrated in the sombre uneasiness of his Symphony No 2. The BBC Philharmonic's strings were outstanding in the slow central movement, rich in sentimentality and sustained expression. Tortelier supervised with increasing athleticism, building up to an emphatic yet not entirely optimistic climax, yet he resisted the temptation to stamp his own personality on music that already possesses an enigmatic character of its own.