Ryedale District Council supports the Ryedale Festival.

Dave Robson - Darlington and Stockton Times -Friday 7th August 2009

THE priory church in Old Malton proved a fine venue for the Northern Sinfonia Wind Ensemble’s presentation of wind quintets and octets that offered some real festival programming.

A blend of the old and new, it introduced the audience to works of the 20th century by Dove, Ligeti, Barber and Farkas before finishing the evening with Mozart in the shape of the Serenade no 11 in E flat, K 375, a work fully in tune with a summer festival, despite the rather damp and grey weather outside.

Regardless, the performance brought a little slice of sunshine into the church.

The ensemble had opened with Jonathan Dove’s Figures in the Garden, where each of the seven sections was inspired by features of Mozart’s opera The Marriage of Figaro and György Ligeti’s bouncy, inventive and tightly-wrought Six Bagatelles.

Samuel Barber’s Summer Music, though at variance with the weather, raised the sprits with outdoor ambience and melodic lines, while Ferenc Farkas’ Five Early Hungarian Dances had both a baroque flavour to the intrada and whirling Hungarian rhythms in the final Ugrös.

Photograph by Ryedale Photography www.ryedalephotography.com