Watching Barry Wordsworth conduct ballet music is like watching a man climbing into a second skin.

Wordsworth, music director of the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO), is one of Britain's foremost ballet conductors and was fresh from the premiere of the Birmingham Royal Ballet's new hit Beauty And The Beast when he took to the podium at the Dome.

And what was first on the programme? None other than Tchaikovsky's suite from Sleeping Beauty, a ballet he must have conducted dozens of times.

But Wordsworth is never hackneyed. With an enhanced orchestra, a fresh-sounding and crystal-sharp reading brought out all the colour and splendour of the composer's first ballet.

Wordsworth and the BPO brought the piece superbly alive with vivid brass work and elegant use of the strings.

Similarly in the closing piece, Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony, his use of brass and strings brought out the wonderful sweeps of music that Tchaikovsky mined from the folk and peasant melodies at the soul of Russia.

In between was Rachmaninov's Rhapsody On A Theme Of Paganini, more plinky-plonk then the rest but still delivered with a Russian edge and with pianist David Owen Norris adding his usual spirited playing.