Wolfgang Sawallisch has been music director in Philadelphia now for seven years, and what seemed an unlikely appointment when he succeeded Riccardo Muti has matured into a fruitful relationship. The Philadelphia Orchestra established its international reputation under Stokowski and Ormandy as the epitome of the transatlantic orchestra, with highly coloured woodwind, assertive brass and silken strings; Sawallisch by contrast was rooted in the central European tradition, devoid of showmanship and with a total concentration on the musical essentials.

Yet conductor and orchestra have managed to find common ground - the Philadelphia has been encouraged to shed some of its star-spangled clothing, whereas Sawallisch, even in his 70s, has broadened his repertory and his approach too. Their concert together at the Festival Hall, part of an extensive European tour, was designed to play to the traditional strengths of both halves of the partnership, with Beethoven to begin, and Respighi and Stravinsky to follow after the interval.

Sawallisch's Beethoven is robust and warmly sonorous; it's a long time since the Fourth Symphony can have been played in the RFH with an orchestra built upon a foundation of eight double basses. Yet it moved lithely, and the still sharp focus of the Philadelphia's woodwind ensured that very little of the detail went missing.

The approach to Respighi's The Birds may have been a touch heavy-handed, but there was no holding back in The Firebird, given in Stravinsky's 1919 suite. The dynamic range was huge - the Philadelphia's quiet playing is just as vivid as its fortissimos - and the interweaving of the woodwind in the Princesses' Round Dance and in the Berceuse was perfectly done. Other conductors can screw up the tension a couple of notches more, but Sawallisch certainly made the finale weighty enough.