Life and afterlife

Christian Thielemann’s annual guest appearances with the Berlin Philharmonic have established themselves as a consistent highlight in the otherwise unpromising depths of winter. His assurance within the pantheon of Central European heavy-hitters - notably Brahms, Bruckner and Strauss - and his ability to draw playing of heightened focus from the orchestra have resulted in numerous memorable evenings at the Philharmonie. Yet for his most recent visit, Mr Thielemann moved away from the geographic heart of the European continent - although not from his late-romantic comfort zone - for a programme of three very different French pieces, all composed within the span of some twenty years around the turn of the previous century.

If the programme was intriguing in print, it ended up being somewhat perplexing in reality. Both Debussy's relatively…