What a difference a conductor can make to an orchestra.

With Barry Wordsworth away in Japan, the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra was left under the baton of former artistic director John Carewe, who was the orchestra's second conductor and held the post for some 11 years.

I had never seen or heard him conduct and, to be honest, I wish I hadn't been at Sunday's concert.

Carewe may well be a great teacher but as a conductor I wouldn't let him near a bus, let alone an orchestra.

He has not one iota of Wordsworth's charisma and drive. His style is jerky, stiff-armed and, frankly, dull.

His reading of Beethoven's Egmont Overture seemed all over the place and not once did he show any energetic drive or sense of being at one with the music.

Throughout the concert, he stepped slowly around the podium and seemed to want to keep the music at a distance.

I could see no engagement, no enthusiasm. It was the least inspiring piece of conducting I have ever seen.

He wasn't helped by soloist Ernst Kovacic.

It is a good job that in the 1750s they made violins to last. He certainly beat the hell out his 1754 Guadagnini in a scrappy, sour and sad performance of the great Brahms concerto in D.

It is to the orchestra's professionalism that it played a straight bat with Dvorak's 8th Symphony, very much in spite of Carewe's baton - they did the best job they could.