The Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra – whose history goes back over 250 years – is riding high. Their chief conductor, Edward Gardner, has just extended his contract with them until 2020, and their recording of Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass is nominated for a Grammy. It’s a buoyant ensemble that Gardner has brought to Britain for a short tour, the variety of its alternating programmes itself testimony to the vibrancy of the relationship.

Birmingham is effectively home ground for Gardner; even so, it was a bold move to bring Elgar and Walton to this audience. However, he opened with four movements from the Peer Gynt suite by Bergen’s own Edvard Grieg, and it was in the very finely controlled dynamic shading, notably in Death of Åse, that the musicians showed their mettle.

That feeling for colour and daring use of the Symphony Hall acoustic was again present in Elgar’s cello concerto in which the soloist was Norwegian Truls Mørk. The tone of his Montagnana instrument is distinctive, the sound on the A string speaks particularly directly, all of which suits Elgar’s melancholic voice in this concerto; Mørk’s own experience of illness threatening to end his career seemed to have deepened his interpretation. The single slight blip in his performance was only a reminder of his remarkable return to top form.

After the interval, Gardner drew a different kind of passion from his Bergen players in Walton’s First Symphony. This was fierce and probing, the climactic moments always tightly controlled.

• At Sheffield City Hall on 19 January (0114-278 9789) and Cadogan Hall, London on 20 January (020-7730 4500).