Charles Mackerras is indefatigable. He still conducts with the energy of a youngster, his enthusiasm characteristically irrepressible - but it is the insight into the colour and timbre of particular composers that make his performances so rewarding.
In this concert he explored the relationship between the soundworlds of Ravel and Berlioz. At the opening of Ravel's La Valse, Mackerras made the muted strings trip a light and ghostly Viennese fantastic. But he gradually created a sense of spinning and whirling that finally became wild and subversive, portraying the collapse not just of dancers but of an empire, too.
In the three songs of Shéhérazade, Mackerras emphasised the highly expressive way in which Ravel set the sometimes prosaic, even banal, words of Tristan Klingsor. Soprano Joan Rodgers astutely chose the moments to soar gloriously like Klingsor's immense bird in the golden sky, but it was in the second song, and her exchange with La Flute Enchantée, that the music's languidly exotic beauty emerged most convincingly.
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra spoke on behalf of untold numbers of colleagues when, after the interval, they greeted Mackerras with Happy Birthday - not any old rendering, but Stravinsky's arrangement for the famous conductor Pierre Monteux at 80. Mackerras clearly appreciated the double compliment, but was quick to point out that, at 79, he still has a year to go.
Suitably buoyed up, he gave a vivid performance of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, underlining the startling originality of the instrumentation (harps, English and French horns, and percussion) and the dramatic, almost operatic, effects. The concert, which raised funds for the Musicians' Benevolent Fund, was attended by the Duke of Edinburgh, but it was Mackerras for whom the audience reserved the right royal treatment.