The cliché goes that Bruckner's symphonies are cathedrals in sound, great sonic edifices that are all about structural splendour rather than emotional impact.

It's not a view you sense French conductor Louis Langrée would share. His performance of Bruckner's Seventh Symphony with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra was an outpouring of flowing lyricism, turning this supposed miracle of musical architecture into an intense, impassioned song.

From the moment the cellos and violas began the huge, vaulting melody at the start of the symphony, Langrée's priorities were clear: to reveal the glowing colours of Bruckner's most radiant symphony, and to make the CBSO an ensemble of serene, singing musicians. The heart of the movement was not a brassy climax, but a tortured transformation of the opening theme, which became a melancholic lament for the whole cello section.

The slow movement is the emotional heart of Bruckner's symphony, but it was the most problematic part of Langrée's performance. The movement is shaped as a series of gigantic waves, each greater in intensity and scale than the last. But in Langrée's hands, the movement began in a state of high emotional anxiety. The CBSO strings gave all they could, but even they could not sustain that pitch of passion for the whole half-hour piece.

It meant that the climax of the movement, arguably the high point of the symphony, did not have the power it should have done. However, the finale redeemed Langrée's approach, and he expertly negotiated Bruckner's tortuous twists and turns of harmony, and created an epic final peroration with the CBSO players.

Langrée made his name in classical repertoire, and it was easy to hear why in his stylish accompaniment for pianist Imogen Cooper's performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 18. But Cooper's playing could not match the finesse of the CBSO. Her brittle tone and lumpy phrasing suffocated the delicate interplay between piano and wind soloists that makes Mozart's concertos such rich experiences.