Bayan Northcott's career as a composer has always had to play second fiddle to his work as a journalist and broadcaster. As he admitted before his Music of Today portrait concert, given by members of the Philharmonia, his Sonata for Solo Oboe is probably the world's most belated Opus 1: the piece was composed when he was 38.

So was it worth the wait? Played by Gordon Hunt, the three-movement work was an elegant study in line and lyricism - the first movement a skittish, febrile fantasy, the second a gentle, song-like lament, the finale a witty rondo. Even if the music lacked individuality, the sonata created an expressive and flexible musical language.

That fluent technique was developed in his Horn Concerto, performed by Laurence Davies with 10 players from the Philharmonia, under Christopher Austin. After another protracted genesis (it took Northcott eight years to compose) the concerto was a substantial 25-minute work. It was another piece crammed with motivic ingenuity and well-crafted invention, and there were moments of striking drama, like the eruptive coda to the first movement, the torrent of fast music in the second, and the strange hornpipes of the last.

However, even in the vigorous performance that Austin inspired from the players, the piece sounded emotionally contained, as if the material had been overworked, removing any sense of real novelty.

The Philharmonia's later concert was a complete contrast, an orgy of explosive drama with music by Stravinsky and Rachmaninov, conducted by Tugan Sokhiev. After his brief, aborted stint as music director of Welsh National Opera, Sokhiev conducted an incisive performance of Stravinsky's Firebird Suite, and he clearly relished the lurid orchestration of Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances.

The concert's highlight, however, was another Rachmaninov work: pianist Peter Jablonski's blistering account of the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, combining elemental power with dazzling poetry.