Prom 59: Munich Philharmonic/Levine/ Brendel <br></br>Prom 56: London Philharmonic/Masur <br></br>Prom 58: Sinfonia 21/ Brabbins/Sylvan, Royal Albert Hall, London

There's only so much margarine one can take

James Levine will, for me, always be associated with vinyl. No, I'm not being saucy. It's simply that his genial face has been smiling up at me from the covers of records, cassettes and, latterly, CDs for so long now that it's hard to credit that there might be more of him than just his head and shoulders. One hears of his live performances at the Met and in Munich. One even reads of him in Vanity Fair. But does one ever see him? No, one does not. Which makes it quite a coup for Nicholas Kenyon that, after years of playing hard to get, the celebrated conductor finally made his Proms debut this week at the tender age of 59. Ah yes, James Levine does indeed have legs and arms and a bottom and a tummy. He even moves. (Though, it must be said, not very much.) But guess what? He's still the vinyl king.

For years I had assumed that the sound of Levine's recordings – an expensive, high-gloss sheen that stuck to his collaborations with Brendel and Battle like hair gel to a quiff – was a product of Eighties production trends. But judging from Tuesday night's performance with the equally sheeny and annoyingly self-regarding Munich Philharmonic – no authenticists they – the sound engineers of Deutsche Grammophon and Philips had nothing to do with it. Levine just likes his music very slick. Regardless of style or period.

It's inevitable that one grows out of one's teenage crushes I suppose, but with the exception of Varèse's Amériques – the pugilistic academic-on-a-bender ferocity of which can ruffle even the smoothest operator – I found Levine live considerably less engaging than Levine on disc. That little extra something that one hopes to get from the tension and invention of live performance was absent; replaced by a lazily sublime, under-articulated, over-produced quality that seemed to be more in the service of the sound of his orchestra than in the service of the argument of the music. To illustrate this ultra-polished aesthetic, Levine has a special gesture: a lumbago-slow horizontal swish reminiscent of a dinner-lady spreading margarine across a loaf of white bread sliced lengthwise. All very well, but there's only so much margarine one can take.

In Hindemith's Symphonic Metamorphoses on Themes of Carl Maria von Weber this slickness led to an alarming lack of rhythmic definition, with the orchestra sounding quite gorgeous section by section but unfocused as a whole. In Ravel's Daphnis and Chloë Suite No 2, what should have been a compulsive narrative became a blurred series of stills; each frame heavy with colour but strangely unconnected. But both of these were more persuasive than Mozart's D minor Piano Concerto.

As ever, in the highly hierarchical Brendel-Levine partnership, Brendel's job was to play with dry restraint and tasteful accuracy – as though to say "this is a masterpiece" – while Levine's was to provide a flattering background. Yes, it was beautiful. Beautiful like a pricey reproduction of an early 19th-century wallpaper pattern. But for my money, simply stating the pedigree of a work is rarely enough to make you care about it. Live music should live.

With the exception of the stunning debuts of young mezzos Karen Cargill and Rachael Lloyd – two vivid performances in the London Philharmonic Orchestra's otherwise hesitant account of Mendelssohn's Elijah under Kurt Masur – the rest of my Proms this week have been on the radio. Of these, the most gripping was American baritone Sanford Sylvan's performance of Stravinsky's Abraham and Isaac and George Crumb's Songs, Drones and Refrains of Death with Sinfonia 21 and Martyn Brabbins. Though Crumb's Lorca-inspired cycle is the more obviously virtuousic work – the baritone soloist is required not only to sing but to sing down a tube, grunt, shout and whinny – Sylvan's unsentimental declamation of Stravinksy's cantor-like melismas is what has stayed with me. His is not a beautiful voice – it's too raw, too direct, too naked – but his singing is devastatingly powerful and, in terms of its ability to persuade, antithetical to the anonymous gloss of Levine. Beautifully supported by the ensemble and expertly directed by Brabbins, this is one Prom where I will be watching out for the repeat broadcast.

a.picard@independent.co.uk