First Haydn, now Mendelssohn: Andras Schiff is celebrating the bicentenaries of both composers at the South Bank, with two cunningly formed programmes of symphonies and concertos, in which he is both soloist and conductor. With his gold watch-chain and his gentlemanly stance, Schiff seems like a musician from a bygone age — as far distant, even, as the 1830s, when Mendelssohn wrote his Piano Concerto No 2 in D minor. Its discreet virtuosity, good-hearted exuberance and a slow movement conjuring shades of Gluck’s blessed spirits found a natural interpreter in Schiff.

With the piano diagonally placed, and surrounded by two arcs of string players, and with double basses placed behind the woodwind, a wonderful interplay of sight and sound, textures and tones was at work. And the Philharmonia seemed to love it all every bit as much as did the audience. Leaping up to conduct, and bouncing back again to the piano stool, Schiff was self-energising, while retaining an aristocratic poise and bonhomie that was entirely at one with the music’s sensibility.

Schiff shared the evening’s solo spot with the 17-year-old German violinist Serge Zimmermann. Although his was an initially earnest, cautious way with Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, glimpses of a disarmingly fresh, new-minted imagination emerged from Zimmermann’s strong and nimble fingers. Unfussy and ungusty, his slow movement lilted on its way. And the finale, like an airborne dance, was dispatched with a will o’ the wisp of an upbeat.

Schiff directed the concerto to maximise its chamber-musical qualities, something he had done to revelatory effect in the little String Symphony No 10 that had begun the evening. Here, Schiff seemed to be hearing the spectral voices of Haydn and of Gluck within Mendelssohn’s imagination. The concluding performance of the Italian Symphony was ebullient without being driven, with a most gracefully phrased slow movement, alive with tiny, animating details and with a rare sentience.

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