This adventurous concert, with the aid of saxophonist Branford Marsalis, revealed a jazzy Hallé in a performance of Milhaud's La Création du Monde, a ballet score that tells the story of the creation of the world according to African folklore. After its Parisian premiere in 1922 it was criticised as "more suitable for a restaurant". If so, then such a restaurant must serve marvellously inventive fare. The reduced Hallé, featuring Marsalis as a team player, was alert to the quirks of Milhaud's music, and guest conductor Kristjan Järvi emphasised its impressionistic elements. It was only a pity that some Hallé players did not appear to let their hair down.

The latest instalment of resident composer Colin Matthews's project to orchestrate all of Debussy's piano preludes confirmed that the enterprise has artistic merit beyond being an academic exercise. The unpredictable wit of La Sérénade Interrompue contrasted brilliantly with the driving habanera in La Puerta del Vino. Matthews's intricate and delicate orchestration of Des Pas Sur la Neige seemed soft and warm rather than icy, but the glockenspiel atmospherics in Les Fees Sont d'Exquises Danseuses produced compelling musical atmospheres.

The music seems closer to Madrid than New Orleans in Debussy's unfinished Rapsodie for alto saxophone and orchestra. Järvi's direction encouraged the orchestra to play with the spontaneity of a small band. Marsalis's soulful cantabile playing was captivating, and his encore of Schubert's Du Bist die Ruh on soprano sax was a model of simplicity and sincerity that lieder singers would do well to emulate.

The programme was completed by Rachmaninov's Symphony No 1. The shimmering Scherzo and the intimate rapture of the slow movement descended towards a hedonistic climax that has lost none of its daring over time, but it was the jazz-tinged Frenchmen who left the biggest impression.