Music of Today/Philharmonia/Segerstam

To See the ­Summer Sky, a work by the ­increasingly ­prominent 28-year-old ­Scottish composer Helen Grime, had its ­premiere in the latest of the ­Philharmonia's series, and was vividly ­performed by ­violinist Maya Iwabuchi and violist Rachel Roberts. This four-movement duo has something in ­common with the nature-inspired music of the early 20th-century English pastoralists, though not in a ­derivative way. Its alternatively ­delicate and thrusting imagery, and subtly ­referenced tonal bearings give it a free-flying immediacy that is as ­pleasing as its ­understated ­sophistication. Grime's ability to allot each ­instrument its own individuality was ­apparent in her ­Clarinet Concerto, whose UK ­premiere followed in a confident ­account with Mark van de Wiel the soloist and Ryan Wigglesworth conducting an ensemble of 11 players. Once again, the music's ability to sustain interest was as notable as the sometimes lyrical, sometimes abrasive gestures Grime deploys as building blocks of a tight structure. In the main event, Finnish conductor Leif Segerstam did little more than act as an efficient time-beater in a reading of Mahler's Fifth Symphony that lacked any overview of the work's ­emotional trajectory. Whole sections were robbed of an essential sense of dynamism. The ­performance survived largely through the professional expertise of the players. Segerstam's accompaniment to Mozart's D minor piano concerto rarely rose above the dutiful either, while ­rising star David Fray's intense keyboard manner promised a more angst-ridden approach than his actual delivery. But his encore, the final two pieces in ­Schumann's Scenes from Childhood, was magic.