Following immediately on from Leif Ove Andsnes’s remarkable Beethoven cycle, the Proms turned its attention to Prokofiev’s piano concertos, albeit according them very different treatment. Shared between three pianists, and with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev, all five were performed in chronological order in a single concert, which proved less than ideal, despite fine individual achievements.

The concertos are variable in quality. Except for the Fourth – for the left hand only, and commissioned in 1931 by the pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm as the result of a wartime injury – Prokofiev wrote them for himself as flamboyant showpieces. The atrociously difficult Second is arguably the greatest, the Third the most popular. The chronological approach meant that the introverted Fourth and flashy, aphoristic Fifth seemed anticlimactic. Many in the audience, drawn by the prospect of Daniil Trifonov playing the First and Third, left after the latter.

There was some tremendous playing. Trifonov brought staggering dexterity to the First and an elegance to the Third that was utterly beguiling. Sergei Babayan offered a thoughtful, carefully modulated interpretation of the Second, judiciously integrating the first movement’s mega-cadenza into the musical logic of the whole, and reserving overt pyrotechnics for the Fifth. Alexei Volodin’s performance of the Fourth, meanwhile, was superbly controlled and beautifully subtle.

Orchestrally, things took time to settle. Gergiev’s wavering beat meant a lack of rhythmic urgency in the First and of dramatic urgency in the Second. He and the LSO struck form in the Third, however, which, combined with Trifonov’s extraordinary playing, was a real high point. Gergiev and Volodin made a better case for the Fourth than many, though it remains an intransigent work.