Brahms was one of the first to identify the strengths and weaknesses of Dvorak's music. "Dvorak's left-overs," he observed, "would keep other composers going for years", so drawing attention to his protege's gift for freewheeling melodic invention, but at the same time hinting that his command of musical structure was not all that it could have been. Yet hearing Jiri Belohlavek's account of the Seventh Symphony it was hard to credit any such criticism of Dvorak - this was as taut and purposeful an account of the work as anyone could hope to hear.

Dvorak reborn as a Slavonic Sibelius may be difficult to imagine, but the way in which Belohlavek shaped the symphony's first movement and made its thematic development seem totally organic did have a similar rigour. The slow movement was distinguished by the plushy depth of tone from the strings of the Philharmonia, which, as the Philharmonic Society, actually commissioned the Seventh and premiered it in 1885. The last two movements were charged with an energy that was perfectly focused; this was all conducting and orchestral playing of the highest class.

Belohlavek managed an equal feat of transformation at the beginning of this concert from the Philharmonia's Dvorak/Janacek series. He and the orchestra achieved the near impossible in the overture to Smetana's The Bartered Bride, creating such a sense of freshness and energy that one momentarily regretted it was not the prelude to a performance of the complete opera. Certainly that would have been more rewarding and might even have seemed shorter than the totally charmless account of Dvorak's Violin Concerto which followed it here, in which all Belohlavek's care and instinctive feeling for style could not compensate for Midori's utterly routine account of the solo part. There was no trace of warmth or any softening of her wiry tone for even the most lyrical phrase.