Marking the centenary of Andrzej Panufnik’s birth, Antonio Pappano’s latest London Symphony Orchestra concert opened with the Polish-born composer’s 10th Symphony, written in 1988 to a centenary commission from the Chicago Symphony. Despite its genesis, the work is by no means celebratory. The assertive opening fanfare is soon mired in dissonance, as Panufnik builds an evolving one-movement structure that progresses through tension and violence towards spiritual calm before the textures start to thin and the music fades to silence. The performance had great nobility and integrity, and was beautifully played. Conducting with grand gestures, Pappano excitedly punched the air with clenched fists during the climactic presto.

However, it was the closing work, Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben, that was the high point of the evening. Strauss’s ambivalent portrait of himself as the star composer of Wilhelmine Germany has become prevalent and iconic in his own anniversary year, though this was the finest performance of the piece I’ve heard for some time. Much of its impact derived from Pappano’s ability to maintain clarity, balance and momentum when this immense work is at its loudest and most complex: so the battle sequence, for instance, sounded like a proper symphonic development, for once, rather than simply a cacophony. Yet the brilliance of it all lay in Pappano’s refusal to see the score as the last word in self-referential irony, and to remind us that its emotions, its pride, anger and beauty, are genuine and run deep.

In between came Schumann’s Piano Concerto with Piotr Anderszewski as soloist, sadly not at his best. There were fine things, in particular the limpidity of the first movement’s development and the appealing weight and shape he brought to the intermezzo. But he seemed curiously ill at ease, and the customary grace of his playing was offset by occasional moments of imprecision.