MICHAEL DRAKE The latest MO awayday, to Wymondham Abbey, provided a pleasant entente musicale with the choir and orchestra of the Rouen University Hospital and the combined orchestral forces.

MICHAEL DRAKE

The latest MO awayday, to Wymondham Abbey, provided a pleasant entente musicale with the choir and orchestra of the Rouen University Hospital and the combined orchestral forces, conducted by John Traill, opened with Haydn's Symphony No 99 in E flat. A relatively slow tempo lost some of the music's lightness in a not ideal acoustic for an orchestra.

But there followed the evening pièce de resistance from the French Connection conducted by Pierre Dechelotte. Hoffmeister's Concerto for Flute and small orchestra proved to be delightfully tuneful, with soloist Dr Jean Arrignon in clear, free flowing mood. His splendid phrasing and a brilliant coda to the first movement was followed by a wistful central movement and joyful finale.

The combined orchestra then displayed many light touches in the marshal majesty of Weber's Jubilee Overture before Mendelssohn's Psalm 42 As Pants The Hart found the chorus in confident form, although a stronger male section would have added more depth.

Many pre-Elijah references were evident from the well-integrated orchestra, Laurence Petit's lyrical soprano was well controlled in covering some tuning lapses. The choir also contributed unaccompanied pieces, of which the Russian Bortnansky's Ige Herouvimy was the pick.