THIS was, I suspect, one of the most unusual recitals in this year’s festival.

The original prospectus included a list of composers to be performed and the evening’s programme elaborated on that by listing a number of specific movements from Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas and several contemporary works for solo violin to be interspersed with passages of improvisation.

Ticciati’s notes added that this was an experiment in an improvisatory dialogue with the exact order and choice of works decided in the moment of playing with the familiar counterpoint of Bach the only constant.

What then emerged were two sets of non-stop violin playing of the utmost beauty, each of about 30 and 40 minutes long.

They were held together by the regular returns to the familiar Bach or, as Ticciati put it in his spoken introduction, returns to peace and by the exquisite tone of his violin (a 1751 Guadagnini) and the easy flow from one piece to another.

Being unfamiliar with the works by Roman, Miyoshi, Clarke, Kurtag, Schnelzer and even the Stravinsky Elegie for solo violin, I was unable to distinguish their specific pieces or to identify any improvisation other than the links from these to Bach’s movements.

This, though, was not the point on this occasion, and with hindsight, it was better to let go of previous concert conventions and simply follow Ticciati’s meditative fantasies.

Peter Bevan