LSO / Gergiev, Barbican, London

A weekend of Rachmaninov inaugurated the London Symphony Orchestra's Émigré series and the two faces of Sergei Vasilievich, before and after exile, should have been thrown into the sharpest relief with this coupling of the 2nd Symphony and 4th Piano Concerto.

I say should because these performances actually told us more about Valery Gergiev than they did about Rachmaninov. There was brilliance, energy, dynamism - but the overriding impression was of skim reading these scores. Where were we encouraged to stop, think, really listen? Did we know more about the spirit that moved Rachmaninov at the end of these performances? I think not.

From Alexei Volodin's somewhat anonymous reading of the 4th Piano Concerto we will have gleaned that Rachmaninov enjoyed an uneasy exile, that he was constantly on the run from his demons, looking for something new to believe in. This is some of the most volatile, uncentred, music he ever wrote. But in this bullish, ill-balanced, performance over-assertive orchestral colours made the solo instrument sound like an obbligato presence, merely another orchestral colour. And even in the slow movement where Volodin's opening solo - like a dislocated jazz improvisation - should have tantalised and intrigued, there was little about his quiet playing to draw us in. Yes, he can toss off the pyrotechnics - but so many can.

The London Symphony Orchestra has all but held the monopoly on the 2nd Symphony since famously championing it during the Andre Previn era of the 1970s. But where Previn's expansiveness encouraged this glorious piece to seek and find its own space, Gergiev - quick to cajole and to excite - was predictably more invasive. Few have a more intuitive sense of tempo-rubato than he does and there were moments here - like the luscious trio melody of the scherzo - where the phrasing really sang. But where were the nocturnal half-lights, the whispering voices of regret? The opening of the symphony was at once too loud, the dark woodwind chordings, the searching string lines, at once too present. I longed for a real piano, not mezzo piano or mezzo forte. But Gergiev was always impatient for the next climax and his nervy body language and tremulous fingers ensured that they invariably arrived too soon. The finale had shot its bolt long before the tumultuous coda.

So a great deal of hot air and bluster and precious little reflection. Even Andrew Marriner's poetic solo clarinet in the slow movement sounded like a little voice in his ear (probably Gergiev) was urging him to move on. In the dying phrases of that movement came the evening's one fragile pianissimo. For a moment or two, but only a moment or two, we actually glimpsed Rachmaninov's soul.