As the only living conductor to have given the first performances of two major works by Elgar, Andrew Davis is the perfect choice to lead the Philharmonia's celebration of the 150th anniversary of the composer's birth. The countrywide tour of 18 concerts that Davis is conducting over the next month does not contain either of the works he introduced - the Third Symphony and the Sixth Pomp and Circumstance March - but it includes nearly all the major scores on which Elgar's reputation rests.

The programmes have been mixed and matched carefully, with hardly any exact duplication. The tour began in Leicester with two of Elgar's most popular works, prefaced by the overture Froissart, an early work (first performed in 1890) that prefigures so many of the characteristics of the mature composer. Davis found exactly the right blend of chivalric swagger and noble seriousness for it, though he couldn't disguise Elgar's falling-off in inspiration during the central section.

In the Cello Concerto, Truls Mork was the soloist. He was sober and technically outstanding, but perhaps did not explore the music's introspective subtext as minutely as some - especially in the Adagio, which he treated quite briskly, more like a song than a lament.

Davis was a most attentive accompanist, and the orchestral playing was exemplary, though he had seated the orchestra with the first and second violins next to each other. An antiphonal arrangement (firsts to the left of the podium, seconds to the right) pays dividends in Elgar, especially in parts of the Enigma Variations. But Davis's account of that had such exuberance, no one wanted to be too censorious.

· Elgar 2007 continues at the Anvil, Basingstoke, tomorrow. Box office: 01256 844244