Orpheus In The Underworld Overture - Offenbach

Petite Suite - Debussy

Pavane Pour Une Infante DΘfunte Divertissement - Ibert

Concertino Da Camera - Ibert

GymnopΘdies 1 & 3 - Satie/Debussy

Carmen Suites 1 & 2 (exc) - Bizet

The RT╔ Concert Orchestra's programme last Friday consisted of French music composed between the 1850s and the 1930s, with the Ibert the only works likely to be unfamiliar.

Kenneth Edge (alto saxophone) was the soloist in Ibert's Concertino Da Camera, a two-movement piece full of the dense, witty vigour that was this composer's speciality. The performance was lively and committed, but neither the soloist nor the orchestra had the sharpness with detail that puts this music in its strongest light, and some of the subtlety of Edge's tone and shaping was smothered by the weight of orchestral sound. The same composer's Divertissement was more persuasive.

Pleasures included Heusel's control of tempo and orchestral balance, and Debussy's exquisite orchestrations of Satie's GymnopΘdies, all the more impressive for the performance's loving detail and slow-but-steady motion.

The calculated exoticism in parts of Bizet's Carmen Suites was less convincing, but the RT╔CO's discipline and good tone were always impressive, and the concert's strengths were epitomised by the vividly coloured Danse BohΦme.