Christopher Gunning
This was wonderful music making. The orchestra is superb in every department and Janson's conducting is full of musicianship and a real understanding of the works. The unnecessary and embarrassing histrionics of most of his breed are also refreshingly absent. The Strauss, in particular, was absolutely superb.

James Alexander
Jansons left me breathless at the end of listening to this Prom on the radio - the Valse Triste was world class and life-affirming!James Alexander

Ian Florance
I've listened to Sibelius since I was about 7 (my father was a devotee) so I've heard No 2 in many a guise. This was the most complete and emotionally committed performance I've ever heard. Despite knowing the work so well I was constantly surprised and delighted, not least in the Finale where the final theme seemed to spring out of everything we'd heard before and yet be a fresh invention - both of which are true. I too didn't particularly need the encores: after a performance like that I wanted no more music for a while. Best performance of the season and one of the greatest I've heard at the Proms - up there with Haitinck/Mahler and Harnancourt/Bach. Thank you !

Richard Burningham, Plymouth
My last Prom this season and a classic. The Sibelius was superb - so good my neighbours wanted to leave before the encore(s) because they didn't think anything could top it. A great Orchestra, a great conductor and another fabulous night at the RAH.

Christian Hoskins
I must admit I have never really understood the widespread acclaim that performances by Mariss Jansons seem to garner. The main reason I attended this Prom was to hear the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, although I was hoping that perhaps Maestro Jansons would challenge my expectations and produce a great performance. Well, the opening of 'Also Sprach Zarathustra' was certainly grand. I was puzzled why an amplified electronic organ was substituted for the Royal Albert Hall’s, but apparently this is necessary due to the tuning difference between British and German musical instruments. After this strong start, however, I didn’t feel that Jansons was in tune with the subtleties of the work. Although the orchestra did an excellent job of showcasing the fantastic orchestration, there was a lack of Straussian warmth. The end section of the work was reasonably impassioned, but overall I didn’t think it was a performance of ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’ to match the best. As for Sibelius’s 2nd symphony, it started well. The surging theme in the middle of the first movement was exciting and I felt that perhaps we were on the verge of something special. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm waned in the second movement. It didn’t feel right, and there was nothing in the rest of the performance that rekindled that early enthusiasm. The applause at the end was rapturous. But ultimately I was unimpressed.

M Cattermole
In this the first of their two Proms appearances this year the visiting Bavarians under their chief conductor Mariss Jansons chose two heavyweight orchestral showpieces which should have had us all marvelling at their technical prowess. As it turned out this reviewer’s expectations were only partially fulfilled. In the first half Richard Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra received, perhaps unsurprisingly, the better of the two performances. This orchestra emanates from Strauss’ home ground and they traverse this music with an authority few can equal. And yet there was little suggestion of the routine about this performance. The players revelled in Strauss’ instrumental wizardry and the glorious string and brass sections displayed exceptional flair. How this music still sounds astonishingly modern and revolutionary, and how interesting to compare Strauss’ startlingly fresh, purely orchestral response to Nietzsche’s text to Delius’ more controversial, but equally valid, vocal/choral word setting in his A Mass Of Life. The only major misjudgement came in the celebrated opening sunrise where Jansons' hesitant approach robbed the music of its blazing intensity and majesty. Sadly the concert’s second half contained a sluggish and unmemorable performance of Sibelius’ Second Symphony. Jansons' take on this work leans towards an approach which emphasises the score’s grand, rhetorical gestures, and whilst I prefer this to, for example, Osmo Vanska’s small-scaled, more classically restrained interpretation (fine though this is in the Third and Sixth Symphonies), the Latvian maestro’s conception did not cohere on this occasion. There was little evidence of an acute understanding of this marvellous score’s breadth and symphonic inevitability. Indeed it seemed as though the players had not reached a proper consensus with their conductor on how the music should be interpreted. It all seemed rather superficial and effortful. However, most of the audience seemed satisfied and the applause was rapturous. As encores we were treated to a not especially memorable performance of Valse Triste, followed by a section from Bartok’s The Miraculous Mandarin (very exciting this, the best music-making of the evening!).Incidentally, let us hope the BBC organisers abandon in future years their now familiar involvement in ghastly Scriabanesque lighting antics as it adds nothing to our understanding and enjoyment of the music. Fortunately on this occasion it was pretty low key.

Ian Berresford
This prom gave us world class playing under the world class baton of Mariss Jansons. The music flowed freely with a great deal of feeling, especially the Sibelius 2nd symphony. Jansons has proved over and over again to be a genius, but with a great deal of humility and empathy (as one could have discerned in his interview with Norman Lebrecht immediately after the prom.) An added bonus were the two encores, especially the Valse Triste, a piece which I think allows Jansons to show off his real inner-self. My only criticism is with the BBC - why couldn't they have broadcast one of Jansons' concerts on the TV?