Amid the compulsive hyping that affects classical music, Barry Douglas remains defiantly and admirably grounded. But Douglas's powerful playing always compels and rewards attention, and this Prom performance of Brahms's First Piano Concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra under Valery Gergiev was much more satisfying than the flashier performances one sometimes encounters.
Aided by an attentive Gergiev, Douglas gave an expansive, almost Claudio Arrau-like account of the work. He never rushed, though he always had momentum. He played each phrase with due and even deliberate emphasis, displaying an instinctive feel for Brahms's punctuation. And his playing had a proper range of weight and colour across the keyboard, bringing out the texture of the concerto's endlessly original writing. Perhaps the final rondo could have used a bit more bite, but Douglas always seems a pianist who has thought things out. He has his reasons, and they were cumulatively immensely persuasive.
Janáček's Glagolitic Mass, in its original and more rawly constructed 1926 version, was not an obvious pairing, although both works stretch the bounds of their respective forms. Nor did Gergiev's conducting reveal much of the subtlety that he had brought to the Brahms. It's true that the dramatic orchestration and ecstatic excitement of Janáček's setting of the old Slavonic text that gives the work its name can take the no-holds-barred approach. With the London Symphony Chorus and four Russian soloists in spine-tingling form, and Thomas Trotter unleashing the full force of the Albert Hall organ in his solo and in ensemble, there was excitement to be had. But there is more restraint and more moments of lightness in the work than Gergiev's approach allowed. The performance felt more weightily Russian than authentically Czech or Moravian. The LSO played magnificently, as one would expect, which must not have been easy coming so soon after the death of their veteran trumpeter colleague Rod Franks in a car crash at the weekend.
• The Proms continue until 13 September. Details: bbc.co.uk/proms
