Too many concerts in this Proms season conform to the “overture, concerto, symphony” format. It may be tried and trusted, but so was tripe and onions. The Proms should push the boundaries of what’s possible in a concert hall.

The irony about the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra’s excursion to the Albert Hall was that the overture – Beethoven’s Leonore No 3 – produced the most polished and invigorating playing of the night. Marin Alsop captured the drama and danger of the work; the offstage trumpet was thrilling; and the final string helter-skelter, starting with back desks alone, was edge-of-seat stuff.

Alas, by the time Alsop’s south-coasters had reached Aaron Copland’s bombastic Third Symphony, their energy seemed to be wilting. She shaped the piece so well, especially Copland’s trademark accelerandos and mood changes. But the violins seemed less and less secure in the stratosphere and the brass started cracking notes well before the celebrated Fanfare for the Common Man that Copland uses to launch his finale. You felt that this was an orchestra trying hard to please, but falling just short.

Happily, the concerto – Samuel Barber’s, for violin – was a different story. Alsop and the orchestra provided the ideal foil for James Ehnes’s rhapsodic performance. The Canadian doesn’t have the lushest, loudest tone. But poetry and musicianship are what count in this wistful, late Romantic masterpiece, not fireworks. In any case, he played the spitfire finale stunningly. But what on earth do Barber and Copland have to do with Beethoven? Let’s have a bit of joined-up programming, please.

Wednesday’s late-night Prom brought us Schubert’s last choral epic: the Mass in E flat. It’s a weird, unconvincing work – this tragic genius wasn’t brought into the world to write fugues. But it does have a beautiful Et incarnatus est – two tenors and a soprano intertwining, interrupted by the chorus’s anguished Crucifixus – and a Sanctus with the most astonishing harmonic progressions since Gesualdo.

Richard Hickox conducted a pickup band and choir of the usual suspects: the sopranos and altos sounded half-asleep. But I did enjoy Susan Gritton’s spirited singing in Alma virgo, a melodious and gently beguiling choral gem by Schubert’s contemporary, Johann Hummel.

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