Christoph Eschenbach's conducting style has changed of late. He famously used to favour slow speeds, seemingly valued orchestral beauty above all else, and often concentrated on individual moments, rather than thinking in terms of structural span or cumulative effect. His recent recordings, however, have revealed a new sense of drama, an impression reinforced by this performance of Mahler's Fourth Symphony with the London Philharmonic.

This was an unusually violent interpretation of a work often erroneously perceived as pacific or benign. Eschenbach's fondness for orchestral beauty is clearly undimmed: the LPO played it ravishingly. What was particularly noticeable here, however, was the conductor's sense of the neurotic undertow beneath the music's elegant surface. The first movement's grace and charm seemed to buckle and bend beneath the weight of counterpoint and internal pressure. The scherzo was savage, and the slow movement uncommonly urgent. Not all of it worked. There was a lack of homogeneity, as if we were listening to four sharply contrasting pieces rather than a unified whole. And the last movement was derailed by the twittery singing of soprano Marisol Montalvo, who cultivated a platform manner of irritating cuteness, which is woefully inappropriate in Mahler.

The symphony's companion piece was Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto. Richard Goode was the soloist. His forthright, lucid approach sat uneasily with the combination of high Romantic turbulence and patrician hauteur that characterised Eschenbach's treatment of the opening movement. The largo, unfolding very slowly, had a dark, lyrical poetry, however, while the finale bristled with elation, warmth and wit.