The ballet The Miraculous Mandarin lasted one performance in Cologne in 1926 before being taken off. Given the scenario, it is surprising that it got that far. Three thugs force a prostitute to stand in a window to lure men in from the street. Neither of her first two clients - a drunken roué and a student - has any money, so they are thrown out. The third, an elderly mandarin, looks more profitable. His enjoyment is interrupted by the thugs, who suffocate, stab and strangle him. But the old man just won't die until he is allowed his moment of satisfaction.

Bartok's aggressively modernist score, which follows the action's sleaze and violence to the letter, didn't go down well with its first audience either. But filleted into a suite with a new concert ending, it makes a momentous orchestral showpiece, given the right performance. It found it at the end of the LSO's first concert with the Russian conductor Andrey Boreyko, who flaunted the music's gaudy, bloodstained finery with a temperature-raising combination of control and abandon.

The orchestra's voluptuous tone and sharp-edged balance were to the fore here, as they had been all evening. The programme began with Shostakovich's First Symphony. Despite the odd minor blip, this was a tension-filled account that dug deep into the heart of the piece as well as highlighting its abrasive surface.

In the middle sat Dvorak's Violin Concerto, a work that doesn't quite make it into the first division due to a dull opening movement. Even soloist Leonidas Kavakos's rich tone and sensitive phrasing could not sell it, though they proved rewarding in the slow movement and finale, where Dvorak is nearer to top form. Boreyko proved a skilled accompanist, a little theatrical visually but musically always alert and authoritative.