If there was a period where César Franck’s Symphony in D minor was at one point forgotten before being “rediscovered” closer to our own time, the fact remains that today it still receives far more studio recordings than live concert performances.

Friday night’s superb account by WASO under its Principal Conductor Asher Fisch was therefore doubly welcome: especially as part of a contrasting program which juxtaposed the sensual impressionism of Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune with the passionate romanticism of Barber’s Violin Concerto and the cyclical intricacy of the Franck.

WASO: The Forgotten Symphony, Perth Concert Hall. Photo supplied

Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune still sounds astonishingly fresh, especially with regards to its revolutionary use of tritones, whole tone scales and chromaticism. However that’s a somewhat dry characterisation; a better advocate is Lily Bryant, whose solo flute here captured the requisite languid eroticism, her tone both plaintive and seductive.

Fisch demonstrated his customary sensitivity to orchestral colour, drawing out the diaphanous textures that make the work so beguiling, if not confounding, while the orchestra navigated Debussy’s shifting meters and non-functional harmonies with conviction and sensitivity, manifesting a shimmering, oneiric vision recalling...