Lorin Maazel is a conductor of the old school; why, even his website is called “Maestro Maazel”.

He was already a seasoned pro when he first conducted the Philharmonia Orchestra in 1959. Now aged 79, he’s back for three concerts celebrating the 50th anniversary of that debut, and as you’d expect the series covers repertoire with which he is closely associated: last night, French music (Gabriel Fauré’s Pelléas et Mélisande Suite), Sibelius, and his own work.

Oh, for the days when a London theatre could commission a composer such as Fauré to write incidental music. He was writing for Maurice Maeterlinck’s play but his music has been overshadowed by Debussy’s opera derived from the same source. Fauré’s score has its share of hints and nuances but his Mélisande is more of a blithe spirit than Debussy’s.

Maazel’s players caught her whimsical mood-shifts, strings rich and full, wind instruments luxurious but refined. If a little dramatic character went missing, the closing funeral march had a real feeling of grief barely choked back.

At first the tempo of Sibelius’s Second Symphony seemed heavy and deliberate, the phrasing angular, but both momentum and tension soon felt just right. The pizzicatos that repeatedly rippled through cellos and basses were exquisite while the third movement’s oboe theme was rustic but full of feeling. As the music surged through the finale’s multiple climaxes, we seemed to have been swept aside by an irresistible wave.
It is a rule of concert-going that whichever Sibelius Symphony you’ve just heard is the best. So it was here.

Maazel knows how an orchestra works from the inside out, and it showed in his “symphonic movement” Farewells, composed in 1999. His programme note provided a detailed narrative, a vision of the world after an apocalypse part nuclear, part environmental.

Perhaps the images were too graphic, making the music seem merely illustrative, a film score waiting for a film. There were colourful effects and stark contrasts aplenty, every perspective controlled with minute attention to detail and a willingness to skirt close to banality to make an ironic point. That, though, is a dangerous game; what might be intended as a device can become a mode of being. Perhaps the greatest sin was one that most composers have committed at one time or another. Farewells should be brief; these went on too long.
Series until Sunday (0871 663 2500, www.southbankcentre.co.uk).