Esa-Pekka Salonen's first London appearances since the Philharmonia revealed he is to become their principal conductor make a carefully planned triptych. Haydn and Mahler run through the programmes - the first three symphonies Haydn wrote in Esterhazy and three of Mahler's orchestral song cycles are combined with three 20th-century masterpieces.

Salonen clearly has a good rapport with the orchestra, but it took a while for the first concert to live up to expectations. The opening performance of Haydn's Symphony No 6, Le Matin, lacked edge and rhythmic energy. It was a reminder that Salonen is one of the few conductors of his generation not to have explored period instruments. The use of a fortepiano to provide the continuo was an odd concession to historical accuracy - except that against the modern wind and strings it didn't have a hope of being heard.

By the end of the concert, conductor and orchestra had become much more focused. Salonen conducted a fine, dramatically vivid account of Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht using as many strings as could be crammed on to the platform of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. He treated it as a sumptuous essay in post-Wagnerian lushness, with glowing harmonies and soaring melodic lines, which was worlds away from the original sextet version of the score.

The group of Mahler songs, seven of the Des Knaben Wunderhorn settings, fell somewhere in between - Anne Sofie von Otter sang them all with consummate intelligence, but until the final two, Das Irdische Leben and Urlicht, the orchestral accompaniments never really came alive, failing to provide the vivid backdrop that Von Otter's keenly characterised performances really required.