Ax/BBC Symphony Orchestra/Davis
Royal Albert Hall, London ***

Andrew Davis takes his leave of the BBC Symphony Orchestra as chief conductor at the end of this year's Proms. In his penultimate appearance on Tuesday he conducted Mahler's Ninth Symphony, prefaced with Mozart's Piano Concerto E Flat, K482, with Emanuel Ax as soloist.

There were many things to admire about Davis's approach to the Ninth, especially his treatment of the inner pair of movements - the insistence of the scherzo, the abandon of the Rondo-Burlesque - in which the solo playing of the BBC SO had real bite. The focus that Davis found for both character pieces gave a direction to the symphony which the first movement had somehow lacked: the elements had all been placed precisely, but they did not plumb the emotional recesses that the vast canvas sets out to explore.

By taking the tempo markings at face value he made the music sound hurried; Mahler's Ninth Symphony should be allowed to set its own pace - something that its greatest interpreters, Karajan, Abbado, have understood perfectly - otherwise the results can be hugely disappointing. By the finale Davis and the orchestra had got the measure of things; though the BBC strings aren't the greatest at laying down plush carpets of sonority, Davis made the structure and its rapt acceptance genuinely convincing.

The Mozart concerto, too, contained many things to admire; Ax is a delightfully expressive pianist. But though the orchestra was slimmed down, the accompaniments could have been even lighter. It is difficult, in this cavernous space, to generate the intimacy that some of the dialogues between the wind and the piano suggest, but Ax's filigree lines asked for something more subtle in response.