★★★★½ Dutoit’s technicolor Ravel and Debussy, plus Berlioz with 350 singers!

Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House
September 4, 2015

Charles Dutoit has been a go-to for Ravel, Debussy and Berlioz for more years than I care to remember, his recordings of all three French composers with the Montreal Symphony regularly topping the charts in the 1980s. The chance then to hear the 78-year-od Swiss maestro conduct a triple bill of signature works was not to be missed, especially as the forces required for the Berlioz Te Deum render it a relative rarity on the concert platform.

The first half paired Ravel’s sultry, evocative Rapsodie Espagnole (fired by recollections of a Basque childhood) with Debussy’s remarkable Nocturnes, his surprisingly multi-hued “studies in grey”. It really is worth making the effort to hear (and see) these big, colourful works played live – the home audio experience never quite catches the sheer breath-taking range of the orchestrations – and with Dutoit’s experience achieving the crucial blend and balance, every facet of these painterly scores was made to shimmer and glow.

The Ravel wove its heady spell, from throbbing nocturnal prelude through a pair of perfumed Spanish dances to its orgiastic finale (the disorderly Feria)....