ROYAL Northern Sinfonia’s Nordic Summer Nights series drew to a close at Sage Gateshead with a programme of music taking in from the familiar to completely obscure.

Mozart’s Oboe Quartet in F Major, was written as a gift to Friedrich Ramm, one of the finest wind players of his time, and was as much a test of his mettle.

RNS oboist Michael O’Donnell rose to the challenge of the formidable work, enjoying a seamless exchange with the strings, led by violinist Sarah Roberts. The adagio is only 37 bars long, but O’Donnell nursed each blossoming note of what must be one of the most exquisite passages Mozart ever wrote. The concluding rondo was driven to a head climax.

Danish composer Peter Rasmussen barely registers on the internet and his Wind Quintet in F major proved a pleasant surprise.

Anyone settling into a mid-concert slumber would have been jolted upright by Finnish composer Magnus Lindberg's Arabesques. Scored for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn it was a veritable wall of sound. Its fiendish instrumental figures were deftly delivered, with flautist Joshua Batty conducting between his passages.

Carl Nielsen’s Serenata in Vano, featured sterling playing by clarinettist Jessica Lee, oboist Paul Boyes and horn Peter Francomb, while double bass Neil Tarlton made the best of his pivotal role linking the work’s sections.

Franz Berwald is regarded as Sweden’s greatest composer, and it was perhaps fitting that his Grand Septet in B-flat major, of which he was intensely proud, should wrap up the evening. A charming conclusion.