Peter Eötvös must have had good reason for placing the UK premiere of his forceful violin concerto, Seven, in the distinctly milder company of Debussy, Ravel and Vaughan Williams – after all, he had agreed to conduct the concert as well. Except that last week the Hungarian composer-conductor fell ill and the sprightly Susanna Mälkki was drafted in as an emergency sub.

Cool and capable she is, but the right conduit for the perfumed strains of Debussy’s L’après-midi d’un faune and the languid eroticism of Ravel’s sweaty song-cycle, Shéhérazade? Some soupy playing from the Philharmonia and more than a few ragged entries didn’t help the lack of atmosphere, though the Suite No 2 from Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé at least captured something of the work’s ecstatic radiance, and Sarah Connolly’s powerful mezzo made a good stab at finding the shimmer in Shéhérazade. In the night’s nod to RVW, the violinist Akiko Suwanai was the star, offering up a gravely beautiful and unusually intense performance for The Lark Ascending.

But Mälkki’s cool head was definitely good for Eötvös’s concerto, which flung its eerie clusters of sound right around the Albert Hall in the shape of six violinists ranged around the balconies.

There’s a reason for that: the piece is a tribute to the seven crew members who lost their lives on the space shuttle Columbia in 2003; the soloist (Suwanai again, dauntingly austere) holds the stage, but the six others – the questing astronauts, if you like – spin fractured lines, icy whispers and slippy downward scales in response to her fierce laments and diving swoops. It’s an audacious piece, its ghostliness emphasised by its haunting palette of colours. Whether the more fragmented second half offers enough of an emotional payoff to justify its span is more debatable.

Late-night mirth at the Albert Hall came from an unexpected direction: John Tavener. It’s 40 years since the London Sinfonietta was established, and 40 years since they gave the premiere of his quirky cantata, The Whale. And on hand again was the conductor David Atherton (who conducted the premiere back in 1968) to manage the yelps, curses, rustles and, just occasionally, eerie beauty of this patchy score. Full marks to the jolly lady sitting in front of me, whose only job was to shout “it can cling to” through a megaphone.

Two more premieres added some lustre for the late-night survivors’ club: the first Proms showing for Rautavaara’s evocative paean to birdsong, Cantus arcticus, and the UK premiere of Tavener’s own mercifully brief Cantus mysticus. Pace Patricia Rozario’s fearless soprano and Mark van de Wiel’s freewheeling clarinet, this bizarre miniature is definitely not a Tavener gem.

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