An hour-long orchestral concert is a great idea. Whether after a hard day’s work at 7pm (as this was), or at 11am, leaving time for a leisurely lunch afterwards, it provides much needed escapism.

This program, subtitled The Roaring Twenties, was perfect for the purpose. Covering the era of Paris between 1920 and 1930, it brought us three popular works that you couldn’t program alongside Bruckner.

The concert opened with the suite from Stravinsky’s ballet Pulcinella, composed in 1922 for the Ballets Russes. This was Stravinsky’s first “neoclassical” work. The controversial composer of The Rite of Spring (1913) turned to music of the Italian Baroque, primarily Pergolesi, and arranged it for three singers and a small orchestra dominated by strings. The Suite discards the vocal sections of the full score.

Umberto Clerici. Photo © Cassandra Hannagan

Conductor Umberto Clerici, a celebrated cellist himself, got incisive playing from the string sections that reflected both the original Baroque style and the sharp point of modernism in the composer’s recreation. There were especially lovely oboe solos in the Serenata and Gavotte movements from Shefali Pryor. In the Duetto movement, the trombone slides had the desired...