First impressions of Magnus Lindberg's new Concerto for Orchestra, commissioned by the BBC and introduced by the BBC Symphony conducted by Jukka-Pekka Saraste in the opening concert of its Barbican season, are of a work along the same lines as his showy orchestral pieces of the late 1990s. The element of display is certainly obvious in the 30-minute concerto's virtuoso handling of a large band, and in the spotlighting of various solo instruments as the continuous five-movement structure unfolds, while the gestural world is similar to Feria and Cantigas.

Otherwise, the piece is very different from those works, much closer to Lindberg's finest achievements. Harmonic organisation matters more than melodic identity. The concerto is built around two chord sequences, and the way the music moves between the two areas defines its large-scale form.

That plotting is faultless, almost right to the end of the work. Each of the five movements has its own character, though only the central slow section, which treats the orchestra as a collection of chamber groups, offers a distinctive change of pace. The scoring is often dense and the climaxes fierce, but the coda to the entire work, in which the two harmonic worlds are brought together, seems to me a mistake. However logical it might be, the result is trite - I thought Elmer Bernstein, someone else suggested Korngold - and a rather banal ending to what is otherwise a distinctive and convincing piece.

Saraste presented the premiere expertly and the BBCSO certainly played well for him, as it did throughout the evening in fine-grained accounts of Sibelius's Tapiola and Sixth Symphony, and a selection of Mahler's Wunderhorn songs, for which the Norwegian mezzo Randi Stene was the slightly short-phrased soloist. At a time when the orchestra must be searching for its next chief conductor - Leonard Slatkin steps down next year - Saraste will have done his chances of getting the job (if he wants it, that is) no harm at all.