Proms 21 and 22, Royal Albert Hall, London/ BBC Radio 3

Old favourites and a bright future

Sunday was a thoroughly romantic day at the Proms – unsurprisingly, the "nation's favourites" given to us by Paul Daniel and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra turned out to be almost exclusively 19th-century and romantically full-blooded. "Popular" can so easily mean "hackneyed", but luckily there are certain works that survive repeated listening – one of them being that old warhorse Bruch's Violin Concerto No 1. It simply contains a succession of marvellous tunes, and Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, in her Proms debut, did fullest justice to the piece's glorious lyricism, while imparting a rhythmic vitality to the finale that included almost dancing to the orchestral tutti.

Elena Prokina was appropriately dark-toned and intense in the letter scene from Eugene Onegin, but a collective sigh of recognition indicated that really it was Puccini's "O mio babbino caro" that was the nation's favourite here. Stravinsky's Fireworks was apparently not the nation's, but one of Paul Daniel's favourites – anyway, it made a welcome contrast.

Finally, Elgar's evergreen Enigma Variations proved that the old ones are the best – here Daniel gave full attention to its many nuances, bringing out the melancholy lurking in even the most ebullient of Elgar's works; also the passion (in "CAE"), the freneticness ("Troyte"), the delicacy ("WN"), and the defiant exuberance of that wonderful, world-storming finale, "EDU" himself. The Scottish players performed this most English of music with commendable commitment.

Tchaikovsky and Elgar are greatly contrasting figures, yet both are undeniably romantic artists; putting a symphony by each of them into the single programme given by Sir Colin Davis and his young Europeans brought out some interesting connections. In the Tchai-kovsky Fourth, all the emotions the composer exper- ienced during one of his biggest crises were writ large. Eight horns in the opening fanfare heralded a magnificent brass sound, and Davis's driving approach caught admirably the sense of the breathless onrush of fate. All was soulful in the andantino, and there was a full range of dynamics in the famous pizzicato scherzo, with delightful woodwind interludes. The finale, animated and energetic, surged satisfyingly toward its optimistic conclusion.

Elgar's great First Symphony takes longer to get going, and Davis's measured pace in the opening motto tune exacerbated this. But soon the shift-ing emotional moods of this disturbing piece came to the fore; the switching from manic marches to "by the riverside" in the scherzo; the melancholy and yearning of the slow movement (a beautifully hush-ed conclusion here from strings and clarinet); the long struggle through rhythmic disruptions toward that final shining "massive hope". An impressive performance from Europe's next generation of players.

Radio 3 will rebroadcast Prom 21 on Friday and Prom 22 next Monday, both at 2pm