Weekend at The Sage

Two concerts took me to The Sage this weekend: both of very high quality.

Friday evening was a Sinfonia night, conducted by Thierry Fischer. The opening work was new to me: Debussy's "La demoiselle elue". A work for soprano and mezzo soprano soloists, female chorus and orchestra, it is based on Rossetti's "The Blessed Damozel". It proved to be lovely sensuous music - similar in style to "Pelleas et Melisande" but, mercifully, much shorter.

This was followed by Ravel's "Mother Goose". I found this went on a bit and a lot of it seemed to go at much the same speed and sound very much the same.

After the interval came Stravinsky's Symphonies of wind instruments. I must admit to a bit of a nostalgic soft spot for this piece: it was the first piece I ever heard live at the Proms, conducted by Pierre Boulez in 1971! Even putting nostalgia aside, I still rate it as one of the minor classics of the twentieth century.

The concert was completed by Poulenc's brilliant Gloria. This exstatic music brought brilliant playing from the orchestra, a wonderful contribution from soprano soloist Christine Buffle and excellent singing from the Sinfonia Chorus, not only firm of tone but also with commendable clarity of diction.

This morning brought the last of the current season of BBC Sunday Morning Concerts devoted to Radio 3's New Generation Artists. This morning it was 26 year old pianist Eduard Kunz. He started with two Bach pieces, the playing notable particularly for his tasteful dynamic shading. This was followed by Ravel's extravagant and exotic showpiece "Gaspard de la nuit". The recital ended with Liszt's Paganini Etude.

I have managed three out of four of this BBC series: each one has been highly enjoyable and each has been better than the one before. This last in the series was breath-taking.