The LPO has a good track record in spotting young conductors: it is currently basking in this month's announcement that Vladimir Jurowski, whom it snapped up as principal guest in 2003, will succeed Kurt Masur as principal conductor in 18 months' time. The latest new face on the podium is 30-year-old Czech hotshot Tomas Netopil. He's a poised, elegant conductor, his movements fluid and graceful, his interpretations tasteful - perhaps too much so. This, his UK debut, was decent but hardly thrilling.

He opened with Haydn's Symphony No 22, nicknamed The Philosopher, and, as the lower strings soldiered through their plodding supporting role in the first movement, the suspicion arose that this might be because only a career thinker could muse on one idea for so long without getting bored. Later movements had more momentum, and Netopil, conducting from memory, obviously knows this stubborn score well. But it needs more vision to bring it to life.

Next came a rarity, even in the Schumann anniversary year: the Violin Concerto, the last major score he completed before illness took over. It was suppressed by Schumann's widow Clara and friend Brahms, who thought they were doing his posthumous reputation a favour. Listening to the heavy-handed outer movements in Daniel Hope's game but unpolished performance - he had learned the work especially, crazily virtuosic explosions and all, but still needed the score - you could hear why. Yet to miss hearing the gentle theme of the slow movement would have been a shame; here was a glimpse at least of the composer at his best, tenderly played.

In the second half Netopil finally got a chance to show his mettle, first in a taut and exuberant performance of Stravinsky's Suite 2 for Small Orchestra, then in Mozart's Prague Symphony. Shapely and at times aptly expansive, if a little lacking in light and shade, this was a better indicator of his potential.