Thibaudet was likewise a good influence in Ravel’s jazzy, wistful Piano Concerto in G. Tall and a little gawky, he looked like Jean-Paul Belmondo with his big, open collar, and he hovered over the piano like restaurant critic Anton Ego in Ratatouille. The first movement conjures George Gershwin and Carnaval, the second chestnut trees in smoky autumn. Thibaudet’s forthright tempi were tempered by a softness of touch; more weight and more sensuousness would have been welcome, however, and in the slow movement more autumn, more regret. The passagework at the end of this movement, where the pianist accompanies a solo cor anglais, was backward to a fault — it’s the piano that has the pulse points of the harmonic changes. The third movement is a side-splitting fox hunt, the horns calling, the piano and the orchestra galloping, and everyone running into dead ends as the fox scurries away. Here the hunters galloped for all they were worth, and their reward was the glory of the chase.

The rest of the program was less rewarding. Levine opened with Alborada del gracioso and closed with the Suite No. 2 from Daphnis et Chloé, and the exquisite solos and an à propos sense of brooding were offset by vulgar, earsplitting climaxes and no sense of direction. It’s true that, listening to conductors as varied as Bernard Haitink and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos (live) and Charles Munch and Claudio Abbado (recorded), I’ve never been able to hear much direction in Daphnis et Chloé. I’d have been just as happy if they’d dispensed with that one and given us encores from Graham and Thibaudet.