Review: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra****

London's major orchestras seldom venture as far north these days so this Ripon International Festival concert was a rare and most welcome event. It stems from the ongoing relationship between the RPO and the festival's artistic director, Janusz Piotrowicz, who has conducted a complete Beethoven symphony cycle in the Cadogan Hall.

He brought two Beethoven works to this concert, opening with a highly charged account of the Coriolan Overture, with some lovely woodwind playing between the trenchant passages.

The Seventh Symphony can be viewed in many ways, Piotrowicz pointing to the drama of the outer movements, urging the horns to dominate in brazen flourishes in the finale, while the linking passages into the repeated sections were projected with uncommon power. The central movements were characterised with the grace and lyrical woodwind beauty, the oboe solos, from Sheffield-born Gareth Hulse, being of a gorgeous quality.

I can never regard Mozart's 'Jupiter' Symphony among his masterpieces, but in the RPO's nicely shaped reading there was an admirable balance between light and shade, the music never

over-dramatised.