ARTS DIARY: MUSIC RLPO/Petrenko, Philharmonic Hall.

Byline: GLYN MON HUGHES

AS IF proof were needed, there was further evidence of the Petrenko effect at the Philharmonic.

Barely a week after a couple of sell-out concerts by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic's principal conductor Vasily Petrenko, he was back on the rostrum conducting a challenging programme to another full hall. True, Stravinsky's ballet score The Rite of Spring is always a draw, but to couple that with a long piece by Hans Werner Henze was a brave decision which proved to be a winner.

Henze's Ode to the West Wind was, in many ways, a dreamy piece which produced some beautifully lyrical solo playing from Jonathan Aasgaard, principal cellist of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. Having said dreamy, there were a number of moments of acute musical drama, with Petrenko bringing the RLPO alive.

Special mention should be made of the orchestra strings in this piece: a sublime sound for what proved a highly challenging score.

The Stravinsky has to be one of the most exciting ballet scores ever written and that sense of excitement was there in the hall. The first section turned into a tense drama while, again, the strings excelled in the concluding section along with a percussion section which rose magnificently to the challenges put to it.

The opening piece - Tchaikovsky's incidental music to the Snow Maiden - exhibited some full-blooded and imaginative orchestration.

A relaxed introduction contrasted with a hugely lively Dance of the Tumblers while, overall, the whole piece just felt a little overly con fuoco.

However, with masterpieces like the Stravinsky and the Henze, one wonders why six minutes of Johann Strauss's Waltz: Voices of Spring was in the programme. Perfectly well played but, surely, more a sweetener than something to enhance the intellectual content of the programme.