TSO simply fantastique in French program

Toronto Symphony Orchestra

(out of 4) With guest conductor Stéphane Denève. Repeats Thu. & Sat. Roy Thomson Hall, 60 Simcoe St. 416-593-4828 (tso.ca)

There are still many doubters who have not heard the Toronto Symphony Orchestra recently. They need to know in no uncertain terms that, with the right conductor, this band is as good as the world’s best orchestras.

They handed an enraptured audience the proof at Roy Thomson Hall on Wednesday with the help of guest French conductor Stéphane Denève.

The maestro turned the hall into a petit Paris with an all-French program that put the spotlight on the orchestra’s technical precision, impeccable co-ordination and unerring balance.

The magic started with Claude Debussy’s famous Prelude à l’aprèsmidi d’un faune, from 1894, which wafted by in a breath of fairy-tale languor.

That particular spell gave way to Francis Poulenc’s riotously varied Concerto for Two Pianos, which dates from1931. It is part music hall, part exploration of something exotically Asian and all show, challenging the two pianists in all sorts of ways.

Two French pianists, Eric Le Sage and Frank Braley, made impressive debuts with the orchestra as they negotiated the concerto with amazing aplomb.

Then came the pièce de résistance, Hector Berlioz’s 1830 masterpiece, the Symphonie Fantastique, which lived up to its title.

This is one of those showpieces that really tests the mettle of both conductor and orchestra. It’s a fivemovement crazy quilt that requires apowerful vision to keep a coherent story running from beginning to end. Denève managed to make the work sound fresh and in the moment. Throughout, he emphasized much detail in an overwrought score without ever losing momentum or musical meaning.