SPECTACULAR, sumptuous playing under Kirill Karabits in the BSO’s regular excursion to the shores of Arabia where Scheherazade spent the first two years nine months of married life spinning bedtime stories to her husband.

The precision and nuancing which we have come to expect from the orchestra under Karabits touched every bar in Rimsky-Korsakov’s extraordinarily colourful depiction of the heroin entrancing Sultan Shakriar in some of those 1001 tales.

A good deal of detail is left to the orchestra’s principals, and while the task may be invidious I must mention the wonderful playing from guest leader Simon Blendis evoking the sultry side of Scheherazade, Chris Cooper, bassoon, Anna Pyne, flute and Kevin Banks, clarinet.

Tales also from the pen of Cervantes which Richard Strauss used in his Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character; Don Quixote, or as Strauss himself said ‘variations ad absurdum’.

The insanely bizarre action includes attacks on windmills, a couple of unsuspecting monks and a heard of vociferously distraught sheep!

Jesper Svedberg, cello, put plenty of Don Quixote’s ridiculous rampaging into his performance with a touching finale. Able support also from D.Q.’s squire Sancho Panza with violist Gillianne Haddow making fine conversation.

There’s another story in Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute, but time only for the brilliant Overture.