Rostropovich/ London Philharmonic/ Rozhdestvensky, Royal Festival Hall, London<br></br>Mozart Birthday Concert, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London

Rostropovich/ London Philharmonic/ Rozhdestvensky, Royal Festival Hall, London

Like so many things in music, the epilogue of Dvorak's Cello Concerto looks back on what has gone before. The orchestra recalls the composer's very first idea, and on hearing it, the solo cello is suddenly lost in reverie – a handful of the most tearfully nostalgic bars Dvorak ever wrote. One last look back. Mstislav Rostropovich takes his time over those bars these days, almost as if he cannot bear to let them go. At 75, the memories are more precious and the subtext of nostalgia weighs more heavily on the piece. Scaling down that famously flamboyant delivery to a mere thread of sound, he drew us into his confidence until we were positively straining to hear his last words. A wonderful reminder of exactly why we go to hear live music: a never-to-be-repeated shared experience, more intimate, more personal than any of the recordings he made in his prime.

He is beyond that prime now, the technique is not always there to carry him the extra distance, but the spirit moves in mysterious ways to make those reflective moments more inward, more fragile than ever they were. So the sound is not as assertive as it was, so the big phrases do not project as they did, so the bravura passages are sounding a little frayed around the edges – who cares when what is said is now so meaningfully said.

As ever, Rostropovich was also a team player, with a conductor's ear for knowing when he was the accompanist and not the soloist – as in the opening of the slow movement where he nursed the duetting clarinets and provided sweet harmony for the solo oboe. The London Philharmonic were in good voice, the solo work all of a calibre, though it has to be said that Rostropovich's compatriot Gennady Rozhdestvensky probably relied too much on raised eyebrows and not enough on a clear, viable beat to keep the orchestra really tight with the living legend in the hot seat.

The vagaries of Rozhdestvensky's beat were hardly a hindrance to the LPO in Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony. It was professionally, efficiently dispatched, but at tempos that, for my money, rendered it heavy and earthbound. Phrasing felt strangely perfunctory, climaxes were uniformly forceful, predictable. Fate is not. It is still possible, for instance, to beggar belief with the onset of the finale's allegro vivace, but Rozhdestvensky again opted – as he had throughout – for deliberation. Only once – with the elegant third-movement waltz – did the performance achieve real distinction, a balletic deftness. Rozhdestvensky's nonchalance came into its own here, his nods, winks and flicks of the wrist picked up in smirking stopped horns and the fruitiness of the orchestra's principal bassoon. Character at last. I kept wondering what Rostropovich-the-conductor might have given us. As it was, the evening still belonged – and rightly so – to him.

Edward Seckerson

Mozart Birthday Concert, Queen Elizabeth Hall, London

A critic's job is occasionally such a privileged one. How better to spend a grey, wet, late-January afternoon than in the company of Mozart? A dose of his music is a rare glimpse of sanity in this increasingly senseless world, and it's also rare to encounter performances of such maturity and generosity as those given on Sunday afternoon by Ernst Kovacic, Nobuko Imai, Ralph Kirshbaum and Peter Frankl in the now annual birthday concert to Mozart.

Chamber music is, of course, about sharing: giving and taking, compromise. The cellist Ralph Kirshbaum, who masterminded this year's birthday concert, is the soul of quiet, understated understanding. His choice of repertoire and fellow-musicians in this instance speaks both of a type of music-making and of a rare musical intelligence. The structure of the programme was perfection itself, each half prefaced by Beethoven's homage to Mozart – the two sets of variations for piano and cello based on themes from The Magic Flute – followed by a substantial work by Mozart in the guise of a chamber work.

Kirshbaum and Frankl made both solemn and light of Beethoven's tricky pieces, which can so easily become pedestrian in lesser hands. In each, the variation in the minor, the most Mozartian, the emotional heart, took the breath away with playing of such touching sincerity. Ensemble between these two is managed by a muscle twitch, such is the chemistry that has built up between them over so many years.

New to this mix were the violinist Kovacic and the violist Imai, but with these two artists – like Kirshbaum and Frankl, soloists in their own right – fingers and bows found an ensemble of minds, a rare thing indeed. Mozart's great string Divertimento K563 demands sharing and shining in equal measure. It's a devil to perform but the tonal match between the three players was extraordinary, the pick-ups seamless. The six movements define the title, Divertimento, but its demands are symphonic.

Mozart's dramatic G minor Piano Quartet K478 is really a piano concerto for small forces. Peter Frankl's lightness of touch, intelligence of phrasing and loving involvement was a sheer joy.

Annette Morreau