If ever there was a program to show off the sharper, deeper, more clearly balanced acoustics of the sonically refurbished Concert Hall in the Sydney Opera House, it was this lineup. Berlioz, the most imaginative orchestrator of the early 19th century, who published a book on the subject; Ravel, arguably the greatest orchestrator of the early 20th century, and Chloé Charody (b. 1984), an Australian composer with an international reputation, who really knows her way around the orchestra. Add to that, the dynamic Pietari Inkinen, a young Finnish conductor, who marries precision and balance with energy and intensity.

Sydney Symphony Orchestra, soloist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and conductor Pietari Inkinen, Ravel’s Piano Concerto, 2022. Photo courtesy of Sydney Symphony Orchestra

The concert began with Ravel’s La Valse, a piece that begins in the mysterious depths, morphs into a languorous (Johann) Straussian waltz, eventually builds up a head of orchestral steam, and finally batters itself to a halt. La Valse is sometimes thought to represent the destruction of 19th-century Viennese society through the onslaught of the First World War, but Ravel denied this. Inkinen doesn’t hold with it either: he kept the...