High up at the back of the orchestra, a row of a dozen double basses, backlit by tiny blue lights: this was the birthday treat for the 80-year-old Kurt Masur, as he celebrated the day by conducting both his orchestras at once, in front of an Albert Hall filled almost to capacity.

Masur is the principal conductor of both the London Philharmonic and the Orchestre National de France – and it looked and sounded as though a vast corps de ballet had been assembled for Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings. High leaps, rippling muscle and elegant waltzing characterised a delicately choreographed performance, with the baton-less Masur conducting with little more than a nod and a wink.

Tchaikovsky declared it a “heartfelt work”; but there was no doubt where Masur’s own heart lay on this birthday evening. Bruckner is one of Masur’s gods. His performance of the Symphony No 7 in E major was both homage and heart-song. With the might of the two orchestras, its solemnity was formidable; but so was its sense of tenderness and of dance.

At first, Masur seemed to be beating time into silence: little more than a faint quivering of horsehair bows announced the start. And then, the great theme of the cellos – an idea that apparently came to Bruckner in a dream – rose into consciousness with a sense of light levitation, gilded by the brass.

The slow movement (marked very solemn and very slow) was never ponderous in its weight of numbers. Masur created an almost Mozartean sense of seamless singing line, with the descending scales of its elegy bracing themselves against the crowning affirmation of the climax.

The bucolic cantering of the Scherzo was steady and taut. Again, Masur maximised the power of his forces by setting in motion a broad, swinging pendulum-like motion behind the clear rhythmic detail. And the finale confimed the extraordinary joie de vivre of this performance: warm, young blood still coursing through the veins of this octogenarian and his apparently delighted musicians.

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