There was a delicious interacting of links in last Friday’s programme from the Britten Sinfonia, larger than in most of its appearances on this gracious stage, but still playing with the empathy of chamber-music intimacy under the discreet direction of its leader, Jacqueline Shave.

Purcell was the seed-corn, leading three centuries later to some of our greatest composers. Music from his Abdelazer, crisp and shapely in its delivery, led naturally to Tippett’s Little Music for Strings.

Rich in tone, well-hewn textures responsive to its eloquent rhetoric, this was an account totally attuned to the marvels of Tippett’s writing for this medium.

Tippett and Purcell came together for John Woolrich’s orchestral realisation of three Purcell songs from Tippett’s edition (after a devoted reading of Woolrich’s tediously meandering Purcellian homage Another Staircase Overture), with tenor Mark Padmore sweet and caressing in his delivery.

And Padmore was alternately dark and wide-eyed visionary in the extraordinary nocturnal [projections of Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings. Here, too, was an object-lesson of how to wait in repose while another protagonist took centre-stage – Stephen Bell, achieving marvels on both natural and “modern” horns, something I’ve never seen juggled before in this wonderful work.

Equally wonderful was the Sinfonia’s performance of Britten’s kaleidoscopic, deeply-felt and deftly allusiv Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge, the players combining so hearteningly under Jackie Shave’s so unobtrusive yet totally effective direction.

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