Concert programmes don't come much grimmer than this. The second gig in Esa-Pekka Salonen's series examining Mahler's song cycles placed Kindertotenlieder alongside Strauss's Metamorphosen. Both works are about unrelieved mourning - for dead children and the collapse of German idealism under nazism, respectively - and both are harrowing. Hearing them together is hardly guaranteed to send you out on a high.

Kindertotenlieder was particularly fine. Salonen allowed the sparse, desiccated textures to unfold into a numbed void, while moments of melodic and instrumental sweetness carried the emotional force of painful memories. Monica Groop was the soloist. Hints of metal and abrasion in her tone precluded the intimations of maternal consolation for which some interpreters strive, though her singing was occasionally marred by moments of harshness and suspect intonation in the upper reaches of her voice.

Strauss's great elegy for 23 solo strings was primarily dependent upon cumulative detail for its effect, with Salonen aiming for subtle gradations of mood and colour rather than in-your-face emotionalism. The playing was meticulous, the sound lean and clear, only aspiring to richness when the polyphony coalesced into chordal passages of momentary solemnity. It was impressive, but on occasion much too cool.

One feature of the series is that each of Mahler's song cycles is prefaced by a Haydn symphony, in this case No 7, nicknamed Le Midi - an odd choice, given that Salonen seems far from comfortable with the composer's work. Haydn is one of music's great inventors, and his symphonies constitute a joyous exploration of the potentials of form and sound. Salonen was too reverential and the performance was ploddingly adequate, but no more than that, while some unnecessary amplificatory tweaking resulted in an odd sound balance throughout.