As has been amply demonstrated this centenary year, people can argue until the cows come home about the calibre of Tippett's operas and symphonies. Yet no British composer harnessed the visceral beauty of the modern string orchestra to quite such electrifying effect.
His Little Music for strings was the starting point for the Britten Sinfonia's Spitalfields festival concert, and its rich textures glowed in the Christ Church acoustic, though the fast finale perhaps inevitably sounded scrambled. Best known as a cellist, Paul Watkins is carving out a parallel career as a conductor, and here he led the Sinfonia with authority through an uncommonly well-constructed programme, though his players could at times have been more responsive.
The high point of the first half was the premiere of a Duo Concertante by the young London-based Kazakh composer Artem Vassiliev, a work just about as reliant on rhythmic drive as it is possible to be without fitting into the polished sound-world of minimalism.
The aggressive opening section started with a single, angry viola note taken up by the cello and ensemble and turned into a buzzing, trilling mass of energy; this dissolved seamlessly via high, glassy harmonics into a softer episode in which similar material was made to sound almost quirky. Vassiliev's smooth handling of such transitions ensured a constant momentum, and the soloists, violist Maxim Rysanov and cellist Kristina Blaumane, played with passionate commitment; it would be good to hear Rysanov especially in more lyrical repertoire.
The church's airy resonance suited the building intensity of Pärt's Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten and the solemnity of Purcell's G minor Chaconne, as arranged by Britten, though in the Lament from Tippett's Divertimento on Sellinger's Round - based on one by Purcell - the solo violin sound risked getting lost.
The concert ended with Britten's Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings. Mark Wilde, a late stand-in, was at his best when singing full throttle, but still couldn't match the thrilling sound of Stephen Bell's horn roulades, echoing around the building to evoke the bugle calls in Tennyson's Nocturne.
· Festival runs until Friday. Box office: 020-7377 1362.
