Classical Czech Philharmonic Orchestra

JOSEFl Symphony is one of those works more known by reputation than experience. Here was a great national musician, a pupil of, lamenting the death of his beloved teacher - and during the course of creation, also of his wife, who was daughter - in a great symphonic elegy to rival those of Mahler. For most of the small audience in the Usher Hall, the performance by the Czech Philharmonic was probably something new. The first thing you noticed was the utter sincerity of the players and their Australian conductor, Sir Charles Mackerras. No gloom has ever been gloomier, no anger angrier. The violin solos of leader Bohumil Kotmel were vibrantly projected, wild cris de coeur.

The comparison with Mahler is revealing. Tchaikovsky liked to describe his own music as "sincere", but Mahler is many-levelled, elusive, self- ridiculing, his terrible poignancy set in relief by its own precariousness. Perhaps sincerity is not enough. Suk's massive, sprawling symphony is clammily sincere, but uneven. From its performers it needed not sincerity but an alert, committed advocacy. They were at their best in the most emotionally direct passages, as when the second movement expanded into a lavish tune with intense horns and mobile basses.

In the later movements, where tenderness and pathos began to drown the voices of despair, and the scent of Czech meadows apparent in Suk's earlier music was more evident, they caught the spirit of humble simplicity that underpins the work's over-fertile invention. The scherzo had a nice, nervous rhythm, but began muddily. The strings have no fire or glint; their soft tone collapses like a cold souffle. Despite a fine oboe, the wind sometimes sounds like stringy beans; an embarrassment in music with the oddest wind combinations: cor anglais with trumpet, or muted trombones, piccolo and solo fiddle.

Full marks for trying, but a lesson needs to be learnt from Busoni, who said that performers should never be too involved in the emotions of a work, "lest they lose control of the music".

The orchestra offered another mourning symphony, Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem, which they are also playing as accompaniment to the Nederlands Dans Theater at the Playhouse. The sheer nastiness of the scherzo could not have been bettered - or worsened - but the saxophone was out of tune in the opening march, and the final movement seemed like cold comfort. Perhaps they were troubled by Britten's insincerity, which is his most engaging quality.