IT'S a cruel fact of concert programming that it's almost always the odd man out who's the fall guy. Myriad concert programmes have been thrown askew by the inclusion of a work that doesn't fit the flavour, flow or pattern of the rest of the show, and which disrupts any coherence there might otherwise have been. Worse, it tends to be the outsider which commands the spotlight to the detriment of the rest of the programme.

IT'S a cruel fact of concert programming that it's almost always the odd man out who's the fall guy. Myriad concert programmes have been thrown askew by the inclusion of a work that doesn't fit the flavour, flow or pattern of the rest of the show, and which disrupts any coherence there might otherwise have been. Worse, it tends to be the outsider which commands the spotlight to the detriment of the rest of the programme.

Such was the case when the SCO tacked on Debussy's charming Petite Suite to a programme that included Britten's Sinfonietta, Walton's Sonata for String Orchestra and Rory Boyle's new oboe concerto, Sorella. The stylistic dichotomy between the Debussy and everything else was so vast as to be immeasurable.

All the other works featured a tautness of construction, lean textures, strong and prominent elements of chamber music intimacy, and particular styles of orchestration. The Debussy, lovely though it is, was light years removed from these in its opulence alone. Also, genius though Debussy was, the Petite Suite is a slight piece of music; it's a confection.

Somehow, not even the concentrated, penetrating and incisive performances produced by the SCO for conductor Edward Gardner, allowing for imprecisions of attack, compensated for the lightweight presence of the Debussy.

Boyle's new concerto was revealed, through the compelling performance of soloist Nicholas Daniel, to be a rhapsodic portrait that, if Boyle caught the spirit of his sister in music, which only he knows, suggested her to be a mercurial, volatile and multi-faceted character, full of humour and sharply-expressed opinions. An odd concert, overall.