This beautiful Prom marked the end of an era. It was David Zinman's last concert as chief conductor of the Zürich Tonhalle, and it brought to a close a 20-year partnership that has ranked among the most distinguished and consistently successful of recent years. The bittersweet feel of the occasion was captured in a programme in which sadness and celebration went side by side: Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel and Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony flanked Dvořák's Violin Concerto, with Julia Fischer as soloist. All three works were performed with the intelligence and emotional refinement that are integral to Zinman's style.

Till Eulenspiegel was all elegance, wit and disarming grace, a portrait of a roguish charmer, rather than a prankster. Zinman's understanding of Strauss's need to balance narrative and sentiment with classical structure was exceptional, and the logic of the underlying rondo was delineated with considerable clarity.

His interpretation of the Beethoven, similarly, placed due weight on its careful transmutations of symphonic structure, without for a second losing sight of its emotional trajectory. The work's pivotal nature – glancing back to Haydn and forward to Berlioz – was very apparent.

Zinman's fast speeds may not have been to everyone's taste, though the playing was finely honed and immaculate in its detail.

Fischer, meanwhile, has very much made the Dvořák concerto her own of late, and played it here with great warmth of tone and lyrical fervour. The adagio, which can so often seem discursive, felt not a second too long. Fischer's expressive subtlety often belied the work's immense difficulties, and she reserved overt virtuoso display for her encore, the third movement of Hindemith's G Minor Sonata, which was staggeringly done.

Ultimately, though, this was Zinman's night and a superb example of his musicianship. He's going to be a hard act to follow.

• The Proms continue until 13 September. Details: bbc.co.uk/proms