Anna Nicole one night, Mahler the next: nobody says the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House isn't versatile. This was 20 of its players, in a chamber concert not unlike the one the Berlin Philharmonic gave last week.

Direct comparison with the Berlin players would do few musicians many favours, but was unavoidable in one work: Mahler's Piano Quartet Movement in A minor. This relative rarity sounded flowing in the Berliners' performance, but the London players made heavier weather of it – though in Antonio Pappano they at least had a music director game enough to play the testing piano part himself. Phrasing from the strings was businesslike, and the obsessively repeated phrases began to seem foursquare, the music more frenzied than passionate.

In the opening bars of Wagner's Siegfried Idyll, something finally freed up violinist Vasko Vassilev's lyricism. The rest followed his lead. Now there were 14 on stage, and some mellifluous wind and brass playing meant the music worked its languorous charm despite the odd inexact moment.

When the orchestra finally hit its stride, it was worth the wait. Schoenberg's pared-down version of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde lacks the Technicolor richness of the original, but these six songs of innocence and experience came across with compelling immediacy. Thomas Hampson brought a mature, tireless nobility to the baritone solos, while the clarion tenor Klaus Florian Vogt infused his youthful sweetness with a fitting hint of devil-may-care recklessness – which, given that he was expected on stage in Barcelona as Parsifal less than 24 hours later, may not be something he had to fake.

• Broadcast on Radio 3 on 10 March at 7pm.