Much has changed in the way music is presented in Central Europe since the fall of Communism.

At one time the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, created in the 19th century and counting Mahler and Dvorak among those who’ve conducted it, was the standard-bearer in Bohemia, now the Czech Republic.

Since the end of the 1980s, however, other orchestras have been formed, notably the Czech National Symphony in 1993, which now counts Libor Pesek as its elderly principal conductor.

It may have been audacious for a new orchestra to give itself almost instant national status. While one should not be prejudiced because of that, on tour it has to be even more sharply compared with its foreign cousins.

And on this showing as part of the Cardiff International Series of concerts there was not much of a comparison. The playing throughout barely rose above the routine, the best of it, in a cheerleading, rough-hewn kind of way, was kept to last for the Dvorak Seventh Symphony.

It seemed happiest in the Bruch Violin Concerto, though Chloe Hanslip’s rather severe handling of the solo part mitigated against a successful outcome.

There was little feeling for the lightness undertowed by foreboding which marks Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony and the overture to Strauss’ Die Fledermaus, though capably handled, was a strange choice to open the second half. The encore, Piazzolla’s Libertango, was even odder, though entertaining enough.

But what a fabulous horn section. If only its colleagues had played with as much passion and insight.