Work: Don Juan, Op.20

Salonen and the Orchestre de Paris opened the Elbphilharmonie season with a vivid journey from Strauss’s dramatic energy, through a reflective new Horn Concerto, to Sibelius’s luminous, precise grandeur.

By the close of the performance, one sensed that the audience’s exhilaration stemmed less from polished execution and more from a shared immersion in the music’s dramatic arc—elements that lingered as the defining memory of this eventful evening.

Making his London Symphony Orchestra debut at the Barbican, Gustavo Dudamel’s Ravel fares better than his disappointing Strauss.