Three young composers, all in their early 20s and 30s: the Philharmonia's latest Music of Today concert could have been a recipe for revolution. But in fact, the Philharmonia's performances of chamber music by Jonathan Cole, Jonathan Powell, and James Olsen revealed the fastidiousness and cunning of their craft - and the limits of their ambition. Before their pieces were played, they described in conversation that they don't want to pander to their audiences. That suggests music of challenging individuality, but what we heard were three works that were delicate, ingratiating, and above all well crafted.

Jonathan Cole's Caught was an intricate investigation of the acoustic implications of a single chord. It was lucid and coherent in its scoring for six players, conducted by Paul Watkins, but the piece was a victim of its own refinement: textures like the clangourous chord at the opening were shimmering and attractive, but the music sounded empty and self-referential. Jonathan Powell's Lyubov, on the other hand, a setting of poems by Anna Akhmatova and Mikhail Kuzmin for soprano, piano, and cello, was full of perfumed musical imagery.

The world premiere of Olsen's Don't Just Chuck Everything Away, for soprano and eight players, was the most distinctive performance of the programme. Setting Olsen's translations of classified ads from the German equivalent of Loot, Sarah Leonard sang phrases like "frog collection: 50 pieces" and "hard-working 40-year-old woman: no sex, 10 Euros an hour", in an increasingly deranged vocal line, all to the impassive accompaniment of sensuous, sinewy melodies. It managed to be at once clear and ambiguous - music with an expressive and dramatic point.