Opinions vary about the Japanese-born violinist Midori. A former child prodigy, she had stardom thrust upon her at the age of 11, and some would argue that she has never quite fulfilled her potential. She is a superlative technician, but many have also described her playing as essentially cold. Her performance of the Sibelius Violin Concerto with Colin Davis and the London Symphony Orchestra wasn't quite the chilly affair some expected. It did, however, reveal a disconcerting unwillingness on her part to engage with the public.

Rarely, I suspect, has a violinist seemed so self-absorbed on a concert platform. She played most of the concerto bent forwards, face to the floor. On the few occasions she raised her head, her eyes were shut. Davis merited the occasional glance, though only when the LSO was playing alone. He surveyed her anxiously at times, and there were a couple of moments when you feared that she and the orchestra might come adrift. Much of what Midori did was exceptionally beautiful, with artfully shaded dynamics, exquisite double stopping and poised harmonics, though her choice of speeds for the cadenza-like passages in the first movement was wayward. Given that her platform manner, however, shuts you out from her musical and emotional world, much of her performance went for nothing.

The rest of the concert - Elgar's Introduction and Allegro and Walton's First Symphony - was mercifully brilliant. The Elgar was muscular, trenchant and free from any connotations of sentimentality or English parochialism. Walton's Symphony was powerhouse stuff, thrillingly played and wonderfully shaped. It's violent convulsive music that completely belies the commonly held view of Walton as a primarily flippant composer. A great performance of a great work.