Guto Puw, nominated alongside the big boys in last year's Royal Philharmonic Society awards, has since been named as the BBC National Orchestra of Wales's resident composer. His new oboe concerto, given its premiere at this concert in Brecon, is the first work to be performed since that appointment.

From the outset - when low woodwinds create a tangle of sound to which the oboe responds with a long, lyrical line, only slowly succumbing to a greater urgency - it is the soloist's relationship with the other wind instruments that teases and stimulates the ear. Puw has a very sure touch in handling the orchestral textures and, if some of the titles of the five movements are more whimsical - Rumour, Chatter and S-s-s-stutter - than one might expect from this rather serious young man, the actual musical material is never less than engaging, with the percussion's role in the shared dynamic also intriguing.

The crux of the concerto lies in the central movement, Lento Tenerezza,with the oboe passionate in its declaimed lines; the more elaborate flourishes and curlicues that lead to the more extravagant cadenza of the fourth movement are equally idiomatically conceived. David Cowley was a very persuasive soloist, and, even if the final movement did not quite work as convincingly as it might, this finely wrought 25 minutes still emerged as a surprisingly substantial piece.

The concerto was framed by two resolutely classical symphonies, Haydn's No 85, La Reine, and Brahms's Fourth. It says much for the judgment of conductor Garry Walker that he was able to ignore the problems of the Brecon acoustic and achieve a performance of the Brahms that was characterised by a thrusting and vibrant energy. Walker shaped the whole work with infinite care, in particular ensuring that the finale stood up as the glorious culmination of everything that had gone before.