The UK premiere of The Hague Hacking, Louis Andriessen's piece for two pianos and orchestra – the novelty in the Philharmonia's prom with music director Esa-Pekka Salonen – turned out to be anything but the extrovert romp one might have expected. The 18-minute score grew from an encore piece for two pianos, and comes with a whole bundle of unlikely musical connections: a dance popular in Dutch nightclubs in the 1990s; a song, O, O, the Hague, which has become the Dutch capital's unofficial anthem; and Liszt's second Hungarian Rhapsody, which Andriessen apparently first got to know through a Tom and Jerry cartoon.

Then there's the idea of hocketing, in which a melody is split between two voices or instruments, so that they play or sing alternate notes. It's a technique Andriessen has used for many years, and here it fuses the two pianos into a single super-instrument, relying on exact co-ordination between the soloists, Katia and Marielle Labèque, who also gave the first performance of this piece in Los Angeles last year.

Yet their virtuosity is not flaunted, and the piece never becomes a brilliant showpiece or gets too carried away with its own rhythmic energy. Even towards the end, when the Hague tune is taken up by the whole orchestra as if harmonised by Messiaen after a bit too much communion wine, it carries its undertow of introspection with it, and never quite lets go.

Salonen framed the Andriessen with showpieces: three dances from Manuel de Falla's El Amor Brujo, and Ravel's Mother Goose ballet and Boléro. All were immaculately turned out, yet without much flavour, let alone pungency. The Falla extracts seemed about as Spanish as an Arbroath smokie, while the Ravel hardly made the case for the composer as anything more than an exquisite colourist.