Jiri Belohlavek's outstanding credentials as a Janacek interpreter were demonstrated at Glyndebourne earlier this year, when he conducted a revival of Jenufa that for its passion, lyricism and sheer dramatic coherence will never be forgotten by anyone fortunate enough to witness it.

For the BBC Symphony Orchestra's concert at the Barbican, this underrated Czech conductor tackled two of the same composer's less well-known orchestral works, one of them operatically derived - the concert suite from his final opera From the House of the Dead - the other the early symphonic poem, The Fiddler's Child.

Every element matters in Janacek's orchestral writing - a single string trill, or a brief woodwind motif can carry as much significance as a grand rhetorical gesture - and Belohlavek understands that perfectly. The Fiddler's Child is wedded to a detailed programme, in which a solo violin impersonates the fiddler, whose ghost returns to claim his child, who is portrayed by an oboe.

The BBC Symphony Orchestra responded as keenly as ever to a conductor who has clear ideas on what he wants and the technique to deliver. In the three extracts from The House of the Dead, Belohlavek managed to conjure up the work's immense compassion and transfiguring optimism through the orchestral writing alone. It was never going to be the same experience as seeing the whole opera in a theatre, but it was a good substitute.

Between this pair of works, there was an almost self-contained mini-concert of Liszt - a curious coupling for the Janacek, for it is hard to think of two more dissimilar composers. The Chilean Alfredo Perl was the soloist in the first of Liszt's piano concertos, a thoughtful, highly musical account, which played down the barnstorming aspects of the solo writing and concentrated instead on the poetic dialogues between the keyboard and the orchestra.

Perl then played the first of the Mephisto Waltzes, conjuring up the piece's diablerie without resorting to overt theatricality; and Belohlavek and the orchestra added another piece of late Liszt, in the form of The Black Gondola, John Adams' orchestration, gleaming and sensuous, of the 1882 piano original.