Barber's Violin Concerto has suffered an unfavourable critical reception since its 1941 premiere. Even then it must have seemed a shockingly regressive piece, with its lush, romantic harmonies and nostalgic melodies. But violinist Gil Shaham's performance with the Philharmonia, conducted by David Zinman, transcended any doubts and he made an impassioned case for the concerto as a convincing structure and powerful emotional experience.

His dazzlingly sonorous tone was allied to sensitive musicianship, and he turned the first movement into a rapt meditation, with its reminiscences of 19th-century concertos and folksy second theme. But the expressive heart of the piece was the slow movement, a meltingly beautiful tune that built to a huge climax, before the hurtling, energetic finale. Even if Barber's language still seems like an outdated resurrection, Shaham's performance was breathtakingly committed and immediate.

The rest of Zinman's programme demonstrated how later musicians attempted to establish an American musical language. Copland's Appalachian Spring was one of the signature tunes of mid-20th-century America, and Zinman's performance of the Suite from the ballet captured the work's wholesome, pastoral integrity. John Adams's The Chairman Dances was a more recent brand of Americana, with its infectious rhythms and swooping melodies, but Zinman's cool, objective performance refused to indulge in the sentimentality of the work's tunes.

But the Philharmonia's most powerful performance of the evening came in Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. After the sepia-tinged emotional world of the Barber and Copland, here was a vision of urban America, with its raucous, pulsating energy. More than the other music on the programme, Bernstein's work created an exuberance and originality that seemed authentically American. Zinman and the orchestra revelled in the music's outrageous fusion of fugues with swing, of samba with jazz, creating a vision of downtown New York in the Royal Festival Hall.