Tonight's programme was a rather frighteningly eclectic one as compared to the usual fare, full of unknown names and composers active in the 20th century. The conductor doesn't record on EMI, DG or Decca, and neither do the two soloists. Who wants to listen to an oboe concerto or (gasp!) a viola and string orchestra work anyway?

Wake up people! We're not talking about an all-Boulez, Stockhausen and Waldteufel programme here (and to some that must be passé already. All that electronic crap.) All this just goes to show how pampered our audience is today. No Rachmaninov, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven or Brahms and we all say, "Erm....I don't think I know any of these composers. I'll stay at home and catch something else instead."

Well, it you stayed at home you missed some of the most sexy, gorgeous playing the SSO has had for some time. The two Ravel works that framed the programme - Le Tombeau de Couperin (the composer's homage to his illustrious predecessor François Couperin) and the Mother Goose Suite - both dance suites by the way, were simply ravishingly played.

In the first, Nicholas Cleobury elected to reduce the orchestra size, and what emerged was a carefully considered, rather Classical performance of the piece, chamber-like in quality and intensity, as though playing for themselves. The orchestra was beautifully hushed in the Menuet, though the boisterous quality of the Riguadon didn't respond to the chamber-size as well. All solo parts were played very well. What a shame for the pager at the end of the Menuet and the handphone later.

Joining the orchestra for the second work on the menu was Klaus Becker (right), a veteran oboist (he was only eighteen when invited by no less than great Brucknerian Günter Wand to be Solo Oboist of the Gürzenich Opera Orchestra) and he delivered as many fireworks as one could hope to see from the usually unglamorous oboe.

It's no exaggeration to say that he was secure in all registers, that his finger work was impeccable and that his tone never suffered. No intellectual Strauss, this piece, and some think that he rather overdid it. It's not the strongest Strauss either, especially when you compare the contemporous pieces - Vier letzte Lieder and Metamorphosen, and runs on for a bit.

Definitely not "serious" Strauss, but perhaps Strauss at his most Mozartian - new melodies and key changes and fun at every turn (although one wishes he had Mozart's economy, but that's like comparing apples and oranges again). Mr Becker was always very nimble and his musicality shone through this rather, again, Classical performance of the piece, with not too many rubatos. Accompaniment could have been more polished, but given the time span for rehearsal one forgets easily.

After the interval was Britten's Lachrymae for solo viola, originally written for William Primrose, later section leader of Toscanini's NBC Orchestra. What we had was a rather restrained version, severe in most of the variations, and only blooming, so to speak, in the statement of the piece as a whole, at the end. Not the most effusive of accounts, but authoritative and imaginative all the same.

Matthias Buchholz (left) was a most effective soloist, and each variation was well-characterized, bringing out the melancholic nature of this early work well. I wished his instrument could have been better projected though, as occasionally it had problems cutting through even the reduced orchestra.

The concluding Suite from Mother Goose is a frankly ravishing piece - seductive in Ravel's "Impressionistic" harmonies (rather interesting when one considers that Ravel was perhaps one of the most asexual persons who ever composed). Solo contributions from all the solo members of the orchestra were very nice throughout, and the drama of the piece was brought out very nicely.

The next time you listen to this piece, though, you might like to know that Ravel's apparently pastiche treatment of the oriental Laideronette, Empress of the Pagodas, is remarkably close in ideas of orchestration and harmonies to the late music of the Tang Dynasty and the dance music of the Dunhuang period. Nicholas Cleobury lead the orchestra with power and authority milked the Romantic qualities of the music for what it was worth, to the final triumphant (and rather Disney-like) closing passages of Fairy Garden.