Sometimes honesty is the only policy. All appreciation of music, at some point, has to involve issues of taste. It's possible to loathe the music of Beethoven, while acknowledging a good performance of one of his works; the important thing is not to confuse one with the other.

So let me throw my hands up in the air and confess an abhorrence of the music of Osvaldo Golijov, the Argentinian who has made a huge reputation through a canon of colourful and populist works that have caught the imagination of many, especially on the other side of the Atlantic. Until Saturday night I knew his music only through recordings, where it failed to connect with my imagination, mind or spirit. And alas, coming face to face with it in the SSO's performance of two of his works failed to reveal what on earth people see in it.

Despite the pugilistic aggressiveness of the string section under conductor Robert Spano in the Piazzolla homage The Last Round, the music didn't impact on this listener. Even with the little touches of Morricone and Rodrigo in its second movement, it seemed music of great facility but no emotional depth. And the spectacular klezmer clarinet playing of Todd Palmer in the lengthy concerto The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind left undiminished the perception that there was little below the surface of this derivative music.