Performer: Ruth Killius

Violist Ruth Killius did double duty as page turner and violist with violinist husband Zehetmair in knockout Britten.

Hall One of Sage Gateshead was packed for a characteristic Thomas Zehetmair programme, with Mozart, Bartók, a world première and a trademark Beethoven symphony to mark the end of his tenure as musical director of Royal Northern Sinfonia.

A piece of music written by a dying composer, left unfinished and completed by a dedicated friend from the chaotic fragments left behind. This is not just the story of Mozart’s Requiem, so familiar to many from Peter Schaeffer’s colourful retelling in Amadeus, but also of Bartók’s Viola concerto, which was imaginatively paired with the more well-known Requiem by Northern Sinfonia this evening.