Celebrating Aaron Copland's centenary in tandem with playing works by Stravinsky makes perfect sense. Of all the ingredients that went into the making of the American's style, that of Stravinsky's neoclassicism was easily the most persistent.

The central panel of Richard Hickox's series with the City of London Sinfonia brought the two composers together. Copland's ballet Appalachian Spring is a masterpiece, and if he had written nothing else of significance, we would celebrating his centenary for the sake of that miraculous score alone.

The two Stravinsky works - the concerto Dumbarton Oaks and Danses Concertantes - are more or less contemporary with Appalachian Spring, but this music of the late 30s and early 40s needs to be presented with real punch and flair if it isn't to come across as a caricature of sewing-machine neo-baroque. Danses Concertantes in particular needs more characterful wind playing and more adroit strings than Hickox generated here.

The Copland was a little surer. Pamela Helen Stephen sang five of the Old American Songs in their orchestral garb, and Michael Collins stamped his personality on the Clarinet Concerto, with suave suggestiveness in the Satie-esque opening movement and pyrotechnic brilliance in the second, though the question of whether the work really hangs together was never satisfactorily answered. Appalachian Spring came as the abridged concert version, which was fine, but in an unsatisfactory hybrid orchestration, which was not. Everything was unwieldy, and what should have danced and sung was flattened.