Composer Oliver Knussen tends to get to the heart of things, writing with a knack for concision that borders on alchemy. Works like the tiny Two Organa (1994) use fleeting gestures to conjure much bigger spaces. Knussen's magic is in distilling grandness (sounds, landscapes) down to essentials and making the results appear natural and fluid. It takes some clarity of purpose to achieve that – or maybe it's a case of good things coming to those who wait, because he is not a speedy composer. This concert was meant to contain the premiere of a new orchestral piece but, not atypically, it wasn't finished in time.

The plan is now for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra to premiere it at Aldeburgh in June; watch this space. As a conductor, Knussen similarly cuts to the point, and the SCO responded sharp as a knife edge. Percussive punches and bone-dry articulation in Stravinsky's Movements for Piano and Orchestra reappeared in Beethoven's Eighth. The directness was less surprising but just as striking in Hindemith's sparky Kammermusik No 2, a last-minute substitute for the Knussen premiere. Soloist Peter Serkin gave the piano lines a stern and touching beauty.

Also on the programme was Helen Grime's A Cold Spring. Grime counts Knussen among her mentors and shares his eloquence, but her palette is all her own, weaving evocative, restless motives with cool insistence. She writes as though her music needs to be told, and the SCO were attentive messengers.