Schubert's Great C major symphony is as big a test of a conductor as any. For some, what Schumann called its "heavenly length" is their undoing, since the onus of sustaining a piece which vies with Mahler is considerable. In this, his debut with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Douglas Boyd betrayed something of his first discipline as an oboist in the shaping of the phrases, not so much putting a spin on melodies but highlighting their often quirky pattern of accents and the profusion of countermelodies.

With a work so consciously displaying the 30-year-old Schubert's desire to "strive after the highest in art," as he wrote to the publishers, Schott, in 1828, it is all the more poignant that he was dead within the year and the symphony was forgotten for another decade. Boyd's naturally buoyant approach meant that the work's characteristic vitality was always to the fore but, with the structurally significant harmonies and shifts of tonality less clearly defined than its melodies, the lack of a determining vision meant that this performance was not so authoritative as to qualify as great.

Boyd had brought a forceful drama to Beethoven's Egmont overture to open, but the choice of Saint-Saëns' first Cello Concerto in A minor as the concert's centrepiece erred rather too far towards the lightweight. Soloist Steven Isserlis did make light of its virtuosic side, but brought his warmly sympathetic tone to the more contemplative moments. Nevertheless, the irony of this composer living nearly three times as long as Schubert was not lost.