Ravel Introduction and Allegro

Principal woodwinds of the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra take centre stage in a concert welding classical poise to unadulterated beauty. ‘Eight days of strenuous work and three sleepless nights have permitted me to complete it the best I could’ – so wrote the student Maurice Ravel of his Introduction and Allegro, a harp concerto in miniature and a bijou piece of exquisite sensuality. Before it come two works lined with the melancholy of a creative life nearing its end: Debussy’s eerie but cuttingly direct Sonata for flute, viola and harp, and Mozart’s glowingly introspective Clarinet Quintet.