Philharmonia Orchestra, Muti, Royal Festival Hall

If all orchestras inspire a sense of loyalty to some degree, then the Philharmonia perhaps does it better than most. Mackerras is still performing with them, 54 years after he first conducted the orchestra; so is Maazel, who has clocked up 41 years, on and off. There’s Ashkenazy and Dohnányi. And then of course there’s Riccardo Muti, who appears to have been given the unofficial title of conductor-in-chief of anniversaries.

He was there in 2007 to celebrate his own 35th anniversary with the Philharmonia; he was there in 2005 for the diamond jubilee; and he was there again last night for their 65th in a programme not dissimilar to that of five years earlier. Then it was Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with Vadim Repin and Schubert 9. This time the violinist was Joshua Bell and we got Beethoven 3.

When Muti conducts the Philharmonia, the sound comes from the bottom upwards. There were only a few moments in last night’s concert in which the upper strings and trumpets really unleashed their power (and all the more effective were they for it) – for the most part this was a concert dominated by the cellos and basses; a fine, firm foundation that gave Muti the security he needed upon which to build his sound-world.

In the Violin Concerto, this building took the form of an elegant, classical structure – Bell’s playing is so sweet and delicate that it tends to distract from the radical early-Romanticism of the piece. Which isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy it. Bell spun his melodies like gossamer and moved lightly as a ballet dancer over the strings (and the stage); Muti was the quintessence of elegance and refinement, distilling all the fire in the movements into brief, sharp bursts that zapped through the prevailing texture like volts of electricity.

This approach was blissful in the second movement, where the orchestra shimmered like sun on a lake under Bell’s lazy, hazy solo line, but was less successful in the third, which felt a little over-manicured: a turn around the knot garden when we all felt like a run through the meadows. But it was beautiful Beethoven playing – and if it was too beautiful at times, it didn’t feel like too hard a price to pay.

The Eroica had more drive, more electricity and more Romantic turbulence to it. There was latent energy bubbling in all of the movements – I’ll tell you this, the Philharmonia sure knows how to build a decent crescendo. We heard them on a number of levels: poised woodwind chords subtly morphing into strings and to full orchestra, a glorious whoosh of energy during some of Beethoven’s more wacky key changes, or, as in the final movement, an oh-so-steady, relentless building of volume and texture to a climax of cathedral-like depth and height. I’m never quite sure of the moments when Beethoven is joking in this symphony – Muti took the not-very-much approach and, as in the Violin Concerto, we perhaps missed a bit of frivolity now and then, but for drama, pace and quality of sound this was heroic indeed. Sinuous and spot on the ball, the Philharmonia is on cracking form at 65.

• The Philharmonia's South Bank season continues on April 8 with Stephane Deneve conducting Rimsky-Korsakov, Mozart and Dukas.
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