Alisa Willis (flute) at the School of Music

By HEATH LEES

For musicians in the Northern Hemisphere, the summer holiday month of August is down-time. Happily for us, one of the knock-on effects is that the School of Music's overseas exports fly home like swallows, giving us a chance to check on and enjoy their progress.

Two such visitors last week included Read Gainsford, who gave a lunchtime recital on Friday, and Alisa Willis, whose full-length recital the previous evening must have been arduous for her, yet seemed to get progressively better.

Why the opening Telemann fantasia began without lights was not explained, and since Willis didn't say a word to her audience throughout the evening (rare in today's presentations) we remained very much in the dark.

Still, the music was elegant and often quite expressive, though with a small and sometimes bland dynamic range that suggested nerves, and a need to warm to the performance.

Certainly, the fashionable Kuhlau sonata that followed suggested a welcome thawing out - though Kuhlau, ever the pianist, wrote the more active part for the piano, and John Wells let the music dance and sway, visibly encouraging the flautist to open up more.

And a good thing too, since the next item - Berio's Sequenza No.1 for solo flute - was a thrilling affair, with low, shaded hues, sudden flashes, fluttery effects and piercing cries all drawn together into a movingly virtuosic performance.

Willis' teacher Uwe Grodd joined his erstwhile student in a short but appealing sonata by Charles Koechlin, with a finale that was particularly enjoyable for its rhythmic bite, and subtle interchanging of roles between the two players.

Leopold Hofmann, once regarded by the Viennese as the equal of Haydn and Mozart, wrote nearly 60 concertos, and there was much of interest and charm in the E-minor one that Willis chose, especially the inventive cadenzas in the second and third movements.

And an excellent ending was provided by the Trockne Blumen variations by a Viennese composer with a somewhat greater claim to fame - Franz Schubert.