For all its familiarity, The Planets is an elusive, difficult work. Too many conductors and orchestras treat Holst's astrological suite as a gaudy showpiece, overlooking its deeper resonances as both prophetic of the political convulsions of the 20th century and as a metaphor of the progress of human life from birth to death. In the National Youth Orchestra's performance, however, the work's darker implications were very much to the fore.

The conductor was American Keith Lockhart, who is music director of the Utah Symphony and the Boston Pops. His interpretation was dramatic and dynamic, avoiding overt flamboyance, though the score was played with phenomenal dexterity. Throughout, his sense of speed and pace was perceptive. Mars and Saturn were all the more horrific for being taken slowly. Lockhart refused to linger over the big melody at the centre of Jupiter, mercifully robbing it of the dreadful nationalistic associations it later acquired. The NYO's practice of doubling and trebling of parts led, meanwhile, to a telling richness of sound. Venus was sensual as well as pacifist; Neptune seemed to swing between heaven and earth rather than hovering in disembodied abstraction.

The qualities that made this so remarkable were also very much present in the performance of John Adams's A Short Ride in a Fast Machine, with which the concert opened though the same qualities occasionally told against Gershwin's Piano Concerto, which followed. Along with his soloist, Michael Chertock, Lockhart seemed anxious to locate the work in traditions of romantic introspection, though ideally it needs a fraction more panache than either could muster. The orchestral sound was also a bit too thick here, though the great trumpet solo that opens the slow movement was played with tremendous passion and wonderfully bluesy poise.

· At the Royal Concert Hall, Nottingham (0115 989-5555), tonight and at Symphony Hall, Birmingham (0121 780 3333), tomorrow.