The bright, shining word Berlin on the billing pulled a big crowd to the Colston Hall for this concert, many people clearly labouring under the delusion that it would be the Berlin Philharmonic. However, the greatest disappointment was for those who knew the Berlin Symphony Orchestra to be a poor relation, but had not expected the gulf between rich and poor to be quite so vast. From the opening bars of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, I had that sinking feeling that comes from wishing a performance had never started.

The unavoidable conclusion was that their Israeli conductor, Lior Shambadal, did not communicate in any meaningful way with his players. The Schubert was pedestrian, while Brahms's Variations on a theme by Haydn would have offered ammunition by the ton to those who think Brahms wooden and dull. He isn't, but this was. It was also slipshod in terms of ensemble.

Shambadal is a big man, given to arm-waving; his one concession to expressive conducting is lifting the little finger of his left hand. It had no perceptible effect here. On the plus side, the musicians occasionally demonstrated a creditable pianissimo. And, perhaps by some sense of collective responsibility (or automatic pilot), they achieved a performance of Sibelius's Seventh Symphony that approached the degree of commitment befitting an orchestra that graces the Philharmonie Hall in Berlin. But even as the stirring Sibelius reached its climax, the sight of Shambadal conducting fit to burst proved an awkward distraction, if not a health warning.

In the Schumann Piano Concerto, Freddy Kempf was the lithe and capricious soloist, although his tendency to pull the tempo around in the first movement seemed unnecessarily wayward. It was the finale that took off and lifted the spirits, with Kempf's translucent keyboard colours. His was a redeeming presence, but it was all too brief a reprieve in an ultimately irredeemable evening.