One of the recent aims of the OSJ - the Orchestra of St John's, in its pre-abbreviation days - has been to "make a strong case for works by British composers in need of performance". This does not mean the commissioning of new music, but the reintroduction of works deemed underplayed since their premieres. This concert, conducted by John Lubbock, placed James MacMillan's Second Symphony and Diana Burrell's Landscape alongside Schumann's Piano Concerto and Ravel's Mother Goose.

Some would question whether MacMillan is indeed "in need of a hearing", since his work is the subject of the BBC Composer Weekend later this month. However, the Second Symphony, written in 1999, has not been heard in London until now. Its subject, as MacMillan put it in his introduction, is "winter as a metaphor for a deeper wintriness in the human condition".

For MacMillan, this doubtless means mankind's failures of religious vision. The music's cold brightness is undercut by intimations of violence as growling woodwind and militaristic percussion intrude on the textures. At the close, the melodic lines mutate into the prelude of Tristan und Isolde. Wagner, MacMillan stated - perilously invoking Roger Scruton to back up his argument - "was the first artist in the modern age to make art sacred in a desecrated world".

Contentious though this is, the symphony is preferable to Burrell's piece, written in 1988. Landscape juxtaposes off-kilter hints of English pastoral with an almost Mahlerian dirge. Flashes of brilliance in the orchestration - which includes tenor recorders and steel pans - don't always disguise its discursive quality.

Yet the OSJ remains an impressive ensemble. John Lill was the soloist in the rigorous performance of the Schumann Concerto. Ravel's Mother Goose needed a bit more panache, although Lubbock perfectly negotiated the music's fine line between childhood fantasy and the perils of adult experience.