Proms 36/37: Sixteen/Christophers/Kremer/BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra/Davies, Royal Albert Hall, London

Since the Queen of Sheba normally enters like a bulldozer, The Sixteen’s approach to this hackneyed moment from ‘Solomon’ came as a lovely surprise: so dainty was their sound, so nimble their oboes, that for once one could see what a perfectly crafted piece this is.

Under their director Harry Christophers, they went on to serve up the ideal Handel celebration, with four of his coronation anthems (plus an organ concerto) interspersed with fireworks from Baroque music’s prima diva assoluta, the soprano Carolyn Sampson. The arias she delivered from Semele concluded with that classic piece of coquetry, ‘Myself I Shall Adore’. For this, Christophers handed her a mirror, to which she proceeded to sing: this was one of those moments when the stalwarts in the arena get an infinitely better deal than the people in the expensive seats above. Sampson’s rippling coloratura frolicked with the orchestra in a teasing comedy turn which was at the same time an exquisite piece of singing. After the interval she returned physically transformed, to sing Handel’s Italianate ‘Salve Regina’; her timbre was transformed too, giving a luscious weight to the music’s sustained and plangent lines. Handel would have loved it, and so did the packed house.

The Philip Glass event which followed was fuller than I have ever seen a late-night Prom: Glass himself appeared, and got a hero’s welcome. Introducing the Proms premiere of his Violin Concerto, he observed that it was ‘just an elaboration of a very simple idea’, a typically unpretentious pitch for a work on which much critical pretention has been expended. With Gidon Kremer as soloist, and conducted by its co-dedicatee Dennis Russell Davies with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, it emerged as early vintage Glass, with pulsing string chords leading to blasts on brass, which allowed the violin to sing and soar. Very lyrical, very easy on the ear, it worked like a beautifully oiled machine, and finally achieved a shimmering beauty.

Glass’ ‘Toltec Symphony’ then got its UK premiere, with the aid of the BBC Symphony Chorus: Glass’s Tibetan interests have now spread to the animist inhabitants of pre-Aztec Mexico. But listening to it, I was struck by a heretical thought in this kingdom of cool: the qualities which make Glass’s music the perfect wallpaper for a film like Martin Scorsese’s ‘Kundun’ imply a necessary limitation when it’s presented sans imagery in the concert hall. And as with any succession of wallpapers, one liked some more than others: my favourite was the hesitant, chorale-like section before the huge chorus started belting out quasi-mystical nonsense. Conductor and orchestra did a splendid job, but it was all, to be frank, just kaleidoscopic effects. As Handel had so richly demonstrated, great music entails rather more than that. Unfair? No, I think it’s time such comparisons were made. We ask so much less of our composers than they did in the eighteenth century.