Christina Astrand And Per Salo, Cowdray Hall

Location: Aberdeen Star rating: **** The Sound festival that promotes performances of contemporary music throughout the north-east is already well under way. This included Thursday's Lunch Break Concert, one of a series run by Aberdeen City and coincidentally one of four such events in the BBC Radio 3 series Nielsen and the Scandinavians. Owing to undisclosed circumstances, the advertised performers Pekka Kuusisto and Simon Crawford-Phillips were unable to appear but a replacement duo from Denmark, violinist Christina Astrand with pianist Per Salo, gave us three splendidly assertive performances of sonatas by Grieg, Nielsen and Nils Gade - an appealing if not quite contemporary programme.