Orchestras are famously difficult to please - and the BBC Symphony is no exception. Their new Chief Conductor, Jiri Belohlavek, seems to be scoring high in the approval ratings, however.

When he first took over a few months ago, the sound he drew from the players seemed, for a brief period, excessively edgy.

But as last night's Prom demonstrated, things are now beginning to settle: the voicing is subtly calibrated and the strings are achieving a velvety richness, especially in the lower register, that possibly reflects Belohlavek's East European background.

All this was put to good use in a programme of German Romanticism that began with a dark, brooding account of Schumann's Manfred Overture: one that emphasised the ruminative aspect of the hero as much as the action man. Belohlavek is not one to waste energy on histrionic gestures.

Nor is Christian Tetzlaff, whose reading of the Beethoven Violin Concerto was unheroic to a fault. There was, it is true, a brief flash of fire in Tetzlaff's own transcription of the bizarre cadenzas Beethoven wrote - the solo instrument in dialogue with kettledrum - for his piano version of the concerto. Otherwise, though, it was a thoughtful rather than commanding view of the work.

The tonal palette Belohlavek is cultivating with the orchestra came into its own again in Mendelssohn's Scottish Symphony, with its evocation of a mist-shrouded world of ancient chieftains and skirling pipes.

From the cellos there were lovely open-throated exhalations like sighs of pleasure, while elegant phrasing and neat martial rhythms combined to make this an uncommonly satisfying performance of the work.

It will be fascinating to witness the progress of this new relationship, but Belohlavek's serious-minded, meticulous craftsmanship could be just what the BBC's notoriously unpredictable flagship orchestra needs.