The only disappointment about the Sibelius on this programme, which reunited the LPO with veteran Finnish conductor Paavo Berglund, was that there wasn't more of it. Berglund is one of the few conductors it would be worth building a whole symphony cycle around, if his frail health permitted. As it was, the audience had to be content with only two movements from the Lemminkäinen Suite.

Berglund now walks with a stick and needs an assistant to help him to the podium, where he installs himself on a draughtsman's chair and opens his score with trembling hands. But when he raises his arms to conduct, those movements become fluid, even graceful. The odd glitch in ensemble from string players unused to chairbound conductors was a small price to pay for an account of the Finnish folk hero Lemminkäinen's encounter with the Maidens of Saari - the Suite's first movement - that was so detailed in shaping on every level. Even better was the spellbinding account of The Swan of Tuonela, in which Sue Bohling's richly mournful cor anglais solo was buoyed by pulsing shimmers in the strings that were judged to perfection.

Had this been a radio broadcast, the announcer would have had to reassure listeners that it was the same musicians on stage for Berlioz's Nuits d'Été. This should have brought a shift from the frozen north to the Mediterranean, but actually took us somewhere glacial, with Berglund seemingly uninspired and Karen Cargill's fresh mezzo sounding exactly the same in all seven songs.

Fortunately, Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony restored the balance. Berglund drew an almost Sibelian expansiveness from the first movement, and though elsewhere he chose broad tempos, he never let the momentum flag. This was unhurried Beethoven, and if the finale ended with a glowing thanksgiving rather than an ebullient celebration, it was just as satisfying a culmination.