Steeped in national pride and nostalgia, Ma Vlast is nothing if not evocative. Composing it in the 1870s, his native Bohemia having recently gained a degree of autonomy within the Austro-Hungarian empire, Bedřich Smetana infused the cycle of sweeping orchestral tone poems with the mythology, battle victories and lush forested landscape of his homeland. He was a vivid sound-painter: close your eyes and the music conjures a glorious history and an aspiring future. No wonder Ma Vlast retains pride of place in Czech culture to this day. It's relatively rare to hear a complete performance outside the Czech Republic; what a shame that this perfectly decent rendition by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and its music director Peter Oundjian was dominated by an inane picture slideshow.

Three vast screens hung over the orchestra to display live "photochoreography" by James Westwater and Nicholas Bardonnay: this amounted to colour-saturated stills of townscapes and countryside, the likes of which you'd find in any glossy travel guide. Medieval facade after medieval facade flitted by, the images so boringly literal that they obliterated any potential for the music to spark its own evocations. The low moment came with snaps of sombrero-clad lads on inflatable rafts in the famous Vltava movement, all majesty and mythology of Smetana's tone-painting utterly sapped.

This photochoreography was co-commissioned by the Toronto Symphony, where Oundjian is also music director. After opening the RSNO season with an ill-judged light show to Shostakovich's 11th Symphony, he might question whether these gimmicks really work. Meanwhile the orchestra's playing was dark-hued and robust, with especially warm, woody sounds coming from the winds and lower brass. Oundjian's conducting was businesslike and built some ringing climaxes, but generally lacked finesse: the Vltava's waters were slow-moving, the fortress walls at Tabor lightweight.

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