Peter Maxwell Davies is one of the most prolific British composers still dedicated to the symphonic cause. His Antarctic Symphony (premiered last year) is his eighth, commissioned with the proviso that he undertake a field trip to Antarctica. During his three-week stay, Davies camped out on ice shelves and roughed it in remote huts: no one could accuse him of not working hard for his living. But he seems characteristically good-natured about the experience. In fact, addressing the audience before the performance, he went so far as to describe his trip as a spiritual epiphany, a revelation of vast andsilent space broken only by the unforgettable sound of the Antarctic ice sheet smashing against the ship.

Those two sonic experiences, we are told, form the basis of the symphony rather than any attempt to "describe" Antarctica in programmatic terms. That said, Davies's score is so obviously descended from the great Romantic tone poems and programme symphonies (in particular Strauss's Alpine Symphony) in its evocation of nature at its most grandiose, that it is impossible not to link musical sounds with the natural world. Luminous major thirds on tuned brandy glasses in a slow-moving passage inevitably conjure up the translucent light of icebergs (also vividly described in the programme notes), while the muffled blanket of sound shrouding wisps of chorale or sea-shanty recalls Davies's description of the "epiphany of quiet" that prompted him to use a Pentecost plainsong melody. At 40 minutes, Antarctic Symphony is a long trip, but its rewards are deep enough to sustain the repeated hearings this work deserves.

The Argentinian pianist Nelson Goerner joined the BBC Philharmonic and conductor Vassily Sinaisky for Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto. His technique is formidable, but he never uses it for mere effect, and his performance of the concerto, and of Rachmaninov's delicate G major Prelude in the encore, was lucid and beautiful. Here was glorious pianism at its most intelligent and musical.