LPO/Elder, Royal Festival Hall, London

The sixth Symphony of Gustav Mahler stands alone. A prophecy of death without redemption. It does not make for good company. Which is why Mark Elder and the London Philharmonic were ill-advised to attempt damage limitation by offering their audience a sparkling aperitif in the shape of Mozart's 17th Piano Concerto. Laid out with the wind instruments brought forward to where the cellos or second violins might normally sit, on the right of the conductor, Elder accentuated its serenade-like manner in fine style, while the pristine Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt - poised and articulate - kept her powder dry.

But the prospect and proximity of the Mahler seemed to infect its good will. Hewitt's air of detachment suggested that there wasn't too much to sing or dance about. She, like Mahler, was frankly a bit of a killjoy.

Or maybe I, in common with most of the audience, simply couldn't settle with Mahler's journey to hell and back looming. Elder was even tempting providence by including the third and fatal hammer blow that superstition had led Mahler to delete (too late, as it happened) from his score. The now infamous hammer was wielded by a very determined female percussionist, who must have given Elder pause for thought as to his future well-being.

But for the duration of this grimly impressive performance he was a tower of strength and control and inspiration. The opening movement rolled out with both weight and trenchancy - the grim reaper's route-march to Hades. Shrill, oily clarinets curdled the restatement of the only really joyous music in it - the sweeping theme that Mahler wrote for his wife Alma, replete with heady horn descant (sumptuously dispatched here). A brief retreat to the solitude of the mountains with Elder's placing of cowbells did little to alleviate the relentlessness of it all. The LPO was on lethally good form.

Even so, the shocking inexorability of the piece was somewhat compromised for me by Elder's decision to reverse the order of the middle movements so that the softer option of the slow movement's protracted yearning (exquisitely realised) came second, and not the grotesque one-legged dance of the scherzo. Mahler did perform it this way during his lifetime but his first and last decision was for the scherzo to come second - for this subversion of the first movement's route-march to drag us back into a relentless A minor. It is not true - as stated in the programme - that all the performances given by Mahler placed the andante second. Evidence exists to the contrary.

That apart, Elder and the orchestra duly overwhelmed us with their bravely expansive exposition of the huge finale. The hollow twang of string basses and doleful solo tuba marked out our descent to the depths, and there was valiant resistance in the huge climaxes before a threnody of perfectly blended trombones finally admitted defeat.