Still, under their energetic conductor, Long Yu, the Chinese players gave a lean, clear and dignified performance of Wagner's Overture to "Tannhäuser".
The singers in this 16-voice chamber chorus, now in its 12th season under their founding conductor, Harold Rosenbaum, really are virtuosos.
That scalding clash of sacred and profane was expressed in a blistering performance by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus under their chief conductor, Mariss Jansons, at the Lucerne Easter festival last weekend.
A historian of the Queen's Hall, Robert Elkin, writes, "At this period the standard of orchestral playing in London was distinctly low, and the well-drilled efficiency of the Berliners under their dynamic conductor came as something of a revelation".
Several of her early engagements were with the London Mozart Players, under their founder-conductor Harry Blech, including a concert to mark the 150th anniversary of the death of Haydn in May 1959 at the Royal Festival Hall.
There was some real pianissimo playing from the LSO too, and that's something they've never contemplated under their current principal conductor.
Last week the uplifting music-making of the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra, playing under their vivacious young conductor, Gustavo Dudamel, again electrified London audiences and critics.
Under their magnetic chief conductor Gustavo Dudamel - himself just 26-years-old - this 200-strong band of young musicians from Latin America perfectly illustrated Henry Wood's ideal of "democratising the message of music and making its beneficent effect universal".
In their two Proms under their new Swiss principal conductor, Thierry Fischer, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales concentrated entirely on French music.
Read the full review The sight of Europe's first black and ethnic minority orchestra in their inaugural concert was inspiring, and the quality of their music-making under conductor Wayne Marshall was even more so.
