Proms 14: L'Enfance Du Christ, Royal Albert Hall, London/Radio 3

It's quite revealing to break out of the Christmastime programming habit for Berlioz's choral reflection The Childhood of Christ. The treatment and even the story are too universal to be bound by a church calendar. It focuses on one family forced by a dictator to become asylum-seekers - Berlioz's French text uses those words - in a land where racial conflict is as bad as in the occupied Palestine that they left. Sounds familiar?

Human character is always the mainspring. Herod and his violent sycophants could be the present Israeli one. When the family is taken in by a household willing to show unconditional acceptance, the surprise is palpable. It's an unworldly work by an idealistic, disillusioned composer, standing apart from the more formal tradition of religious music, and potentially at odds with the worldly polish you expect from a performance by the John Eliot Gardiner's Monteverdi Choir, Orchestre rèvolutionnaire et romantique, and this time a Cambridge college choir too, from Clare.

It worked out better than that, once it found the wavelength. James Gilchrist, the narrator, had been working impressively on his French nasal vowels, but shared an English overemphatic delivery with all the singers in the opening scenes. This rigid treatment of rhythm, though more fluent in the orchestra, was the main difference from the definitive performances of recent times, which have been conducted by Sir Colin Davis.

Best early moment was the sudden unseen arrival of an angels' chorus in the gallery, accompanied by a characterful harmonium. They took five minutes to get down to the platform for Part 2, but it was worth it. A smaller group had to make the journey twice more: you could see them running to the exit next time, though Gardiner started without them. The full chorus made a smoother ensemble than men and women separately, somewhat overcooked in the Shepherds' Farewell, which became a series of utterances rather than seamless phrases, missing the intended naïve quality.

The turning point followed immediately in the narration of the refugees' rest at an oasis. Gilchrist, more relaxed, found an affecting simplicity and could step up the intensity for the following drama of rebuffs. In the sequence of pathos, suffering and relief the combined forces worked at their best, precision hand in hand with sensitivity.

Jeremy White, in the customary doubling-up of roles, made the warm welcoming patriarch more convincing than the heavy-handed mad dictator of earlier on. Bernarda Fink's Mary deepened an always warm portrayal, Gilles Cachemaille was tireless dependability itself as Joseph. A dramatic increase in spaciousness and a turn to hushed calm enhanced the ending's momentous generosity.