Seen & Heard, Peter Graham Woolf

The Galliard Ensemble, well remembered from their successes as Park Lane Group Young Artists and more recently at the Proms, gave a well balanced programme which finished with Ligeti’s 1953 Bagatelles, composed in Budapest whilst Budapest was still in cultural isolation. Their originality and promise for the future shone through. Birtwistle’s Five Distances, immaculately prepared, also gained from the players standing well apart as instructed by the composer. Reflecting the educational theme running through the festival, it was good to hear Tinico’s Autumn Wind,composed for the RAM’s Junior Academy, and James Olsen’s Imbroglio, composed when he was in his mid teens and a winner in the Galliard Wind Quintet Competition.