L'Enfance du Christ, Berlioz's oratorio about the insecurity of Herod and the flight of the Holy Family into Egypt is often regarded as an uncharacteristic piece. It uses much smaller forces and is gentler in tone than his gargantuan choral epics. Berlioz claimed that he had not altered his style; he was merely following the requirements of his subject; for him the result was the aural equivalent of old illuminated missals.

In what was one of his final performances as principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, Colin Davis's extraordinary rapport with Berlioz's idiom was evident as much in the lucid tone he drew from every instrumental department as in his feeling for the music's mood and flow.

Though the sporadic action contained in the work's short scenes is linked by a sung narration - realised to perfection in this instance by the French tenor Yann Beuron, replacing Ian Bostridge - Berlioz's operatic instincts often come to the fore.

Matthew Rose presented Herod's rising anxiety vividly, Karen Cargill offered a tender Mary and William Dazeley a solicitous Joseph, while Peter Rose made a good deal out of the benevolent Ishmaelite who takes them in after their initial rejection in Egypt. But in re-affirming how much freshness of imagination there is in this most restrained of Berlioz's masterpieces, the evening belonged to Davis.