Proms 2019, Bournemouth SO/Karabits review: Ravishing sounds of a visit to the planets

With his billowing locks and elegant pastiche tail-coat, the Franco-Serbian violinist Nemanja Radulović cut a dash before playing a note.

But his beguilingly sensuous tone and eloquent phrasing were immediately apparent and perfectly attuned to the genial expressive qualities of Samuel Barber’s late Romantic Violin Concerto.

The concert had opened with the exhilarating rollercoaster of John Adams’ Short Ride in a Fast Machine. The rhythmic tautness of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under Kirill Karabits was notable both here and in Holst’s Planets, especially the war-heralding Mars.

Most impressive of all were the ravishing celestial sonorities (strings, harps, celesta, softly voiced wind and brass) produced by the Bournemouth players in Venus, Saturn and Neptune. The Trinity Boys Choir’s tuning in the fiendishly challenging wordless chorus that ends the work was admirable.

The now apparently statutory applause between movements at the Proms destroys both the contemplative mood and the unity of a work like The Planets.

The BBC Proms (bbc.co.uk/proms) continue until Sept 14