Prom 74: Ax/Vienna Phil/Tilson Thomas, Royal Albert Hall, London, review: The penultimate Prom is the biz

Pianist Emanuel Ax joins the Vienna Philharmonic for its second Prom this season, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas

Pianist Emanuel Ax performs with the Vienna Philharmonic in the penultimate Prom (Chris Christodoulou)

The Last Prom is lollipops: the penultimate Prom is the biz. This year we got the Vienna Philharmonic under Michael Tilson Thomas’s direction, with Emanuel Ax at the piano. First up, Brahms’s serene Variations on the St Anthony Chorale, with its contours lovingly shaped and its permutations turned with grace; even when the pianissimo line snaked rapidly from one instrumental group to another, the lyricism still flowed seamlessly.

The piano concerto was Mozart’s 14th, a mellow, middle-period work that feels bathed in sunlight. And, as Ax brought out the decisive opening chords followed by their legato answer, I was struck by the thought I often have when I hear pianists of his generation and background (born to concentration-camp survivors in Poland in the Forties, trained at the Juilliard in its heyday): what is it that makes their sound so magical, and why can no young pianist today reproduce it? Words such as “breeding” and “singing warmth” don’t get near the heart of this mystery.

His encore was a Schubert impromptu, wrapping things up like a bed-time story. After a power-packed performance of Beethoven’s seventh symphony, the Vienna Phil gave us their own surprising encore: Delius’s On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring, luxuriously upholstered, but bursting with charm.