Music review: Royal Scottish National Orchestra

Going by his publicity photograph – stylish unkempt hair, cool shades and a baby face – Krzysztof Urbanski doesn't immediately strike you as the typical white-tie-and-tails conductor. Yet here he was, formally attired, and directing the RSNO in a thoroughly safe and conservative programme of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Dvorak.

Could that be why a strange dichotomy existed between the visibly dynamic flick of his beat, and stretches of playing that didn't always reflect the energy and incision of Urbanski's presence on the podium?

It all started very positively – a Beethoven Coriolan overture that opened confidently and with enormous richness of tone, particularly from the strings whose attitude throughout was gutsy and committed.

Then the real reason for the capacity crowd – the appearance of John Lill as soloist in Tchaikovsky's warhorse Piano Concerto (No 1 in B minor), which the legendary pianist delivered with typically solid authority.

But there was something amiss in the connection between soloist and orchestra, moments of loosened concentration that brought odd shudders to the otherwise smooth passage of the music.

Similar hiatuses – periodic slackness of attack in the wind ensemble – dampened the sizzle of Dvorak's Fifth Symphony, one of his lesser played symphonies, but with all the composer's popular, smiling, optimistic trademarks.

There's something about Urbanski – a palpable excitability and promise of interesting things to come – that suggests this programme didn't quite do him justice. Let's get him back, but this time with music that matches the cool, possibly challenging, persona.