The explosion of energy that launches Richard Strauss's Don Juan got this concert off to a flying start. The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra was in fine form, and Christian Gansch full of exuberant passion, perhaps reminded of his first conducting experience at 25, just a year older than Strauss when he wrote this tone-poem.

Yet, while the virile cut and thrust of the music was highly convincing, the more expressive passages that depict the Don's romantic encounters lacked the same discipline - the first hint that Gansch does not always follow through with the rigour needed to sustain tension to the bitter end.

The CBSO's principal flautist, Kevin Gowland, was the soloist in Mozart's G major concerto, K313. At its most striking, this has the golden glint of Mozart's more mature flute writing: joyous, ethereal, but with moments that are almost innocently tragic. All this was eloquently realised by Gowland, but Mozart's apparent disenchantment with the flute (he wrote it on the promise of lots of money) is betrayed in the final rondo, where the orchestral flute sets up the movement, but can't be so strong as to steal the soloist's limelight. This slight misjudgement is a reminder that later Mozartean perfection was attained - it didn't just happen.

Brahms' Fourth Symphony ought to have been the crowning glory of the evening. Gansch's brisk style suggested a determination to honour the classical structure, but his matter-of-fact approach to transitional points and to the natural breathing spaces made for an uneven performance. This is a symphony which cannot be rushed yet must always flow, and it was Gansch's failure to get that crucial balance that diminished the work's nobility.