Prom 29: English Chamber Orchestra/Ralf Gothoni, Royal Albert Hall, London

Faultless planning in a sea of chaos

Incoherent or random is how some of this year's Proms programmes have been described. But Saturday's frankly popular (though fairly high-class popular) concert was faultlessly planned as an evening which started in a light-hearted mood and then mellowed into something more serious, though still light-footed. A serious criticism could be made, though, of the Radio 3 broadcasts this year, in which anything loud has been suppressed except for soloists, who have been seriously over-compensated. In the hall, Ralf Gothoni, directing Haydn's Piano Concerto in D major from the keyboard, blended well with the smallish English Chamber Orchestra, making a soft-grained sound that was perfectly audible but never forced. If he was almost in danger of racing ahead of the tempo he had set in the first movement and was a bit wayward in the middle movement, he nevertheless played – from memory – with great zest, and contributed some stylish cadenzas, extending the one in the second movement into a miniature fantasy.

Haydn's high-spirited concerto ended the first half, balancing what was otherwise a showcase for Thomas Allen, in fine form. He played to the gallery in "Largo al factotum" from Rossini's The Barber of Seville, though that can surely be indulged, and the way he sang to the back of the stage for a moment at the words "Figaro here, Figaro there" was as effective as it was surprising. It seemed a bit much, perhaps, to tip the mandolin-player, James Ellis, at the end of "Deh vieni alla finestra", from Mozart's Don Giovanni, until you reflected that Allen should have been playing, or pretending to play, the instrument himself. So that was all right.

And very much alright was his restrained and stylish singing of Ravel's three songs, Don Quichotte à Dulcinée, after the interval. It's no fresh discovery, though confirmed by the chosen theme this season, that the best Spanish music was written by Frenchmen. The Overture to Los Esclavos Felices (The Happy Slaves), an opera by the Spaniard Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga, which introduced the Ravel songs, was in an anonymously professional Italianate style, a bit like Rossini or early Schubert. But then, the composer was only 14 when he wrote it.

The concert ended with a fairly gentle performance of Mozart's Symphony No 39 in E flat major, some repeats observed, others not; but a sense of proportion was satisfied, and, after all, we can't listen with the ears of Mozart's contemporaries, because we know different things.

Prom 29 will be rebroadcast on Radio 3 tomorrow at 2pm