Of course everyone's looking forward to this summer's move back into the Royal Festival Hall. But every so often comes a reminder that perhaps we'll miss the in-your-face qualities of hearing our best large orchestras shaking the walls of a venue that's just a little too small.

Like the Philharmonia's performance of Brahms's Fourth Symphony, which in this interpretation by outgoing musical director Christoph von Dohnányi conjured up a sense of old-school grandeur without becoming staid. Dohnányi demanded thickly textured, full-blooded playing, though an intriguing exception was the wind at the start of the slow movement: a lack of vibrato and expression gave the impression of a band in search of a melody, leaving room for the music to blossom later. Towards the end of the fourth movement, when the repeated theme made its most dramatically unambiguous appearance, the string chords had the impact of gun shots.

You could argue that the Brahms is the apotheosis of the Romantic-era symphony; but if you were feeling only a little contrary you could say the same thing for Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony, heard at the start of the evening, which for all its burgeoning atonality sounded as powerfully passionate as any Brahms. With all 15 players on fine, soloistic form, the shifting bursts of melody wove together into something that made powerfully compelling sense.

Schumann's Piano Concerto seemed an indulgent confection in comparison, and pianist Lars Vogt's reading of the first movement, the slow melody poised but not especially thoughtful, reinforced this. Elsewhere Vogt, grinning widely and with his foot thumping down on the pedal, looked like a small boy with a new toy, and his enthusiasm was infectious; the audience reception after the ebullient finale was warm enough to earn a delicate and surprisingly subtle Schubert Moment Musical as encore.