Brahms and Janacek don't have much in common, but they made a surprisingly effective pairing in this London Symphony Orchestra programme conducted by the versatile Mark Elder. He began with Jealousy, originally conceived as the overture to Janacek's opera Jenufa, but wisely dropped as surplus to requirements. As a concert item, it works perfectly well, though its conventional sound-and-fury reveals another reason Janacek ditched it. But Elder and the LSO went for it, expounding boldly the fierce inner struggle it represents.

The Fiddler's Child is a more mature work. Based on a poignant tale about a poor village fiddler who dies, leaving his son an orphan, it contains some subtle scoring, skilfully purveyed here by guest leader Andrew Haveron and indeed the entire string section, though even Elder's advocacy couldn't establish the result as a masterpiece.

Which his final Janacek choice, Taras Bulba, certainly is. This grim account of the Ukrainian nationalist who witnesses the deaths of his two sons summons up violent musical imagery and reaches a clamorous apotheosis. Here, every orchestral department was on the keenest form, with Elder slotting each musical idea into its ideal position in the whole.

Earlier, he had proved the immaculate accompanist for Joshua Bell's performance of the Brahms Violin Concerto. Bell maintained a perfection of tone, matching all of Brahms' expressive cues with a finely judged response. Daringly, he substituted his own cadenza for the time-honoured one by Joachim, and it says a good deal for his musical ingenuity that one hardly missed the original.