SITTING in Dore Abbey, spending a summer evening listening to Tasmin Little playing her Stradivarius must be most people's idea of paradise.

She always seems to be inviting her audience to share in her enjoyment of the music in her programme. Last Friday, with John Lenehan at the piano, she revelled in the tongue in cheek pastiche of Krieisler's Praeludium and Allegro, the heartfelt melancholy of Mozart's E minor Violin Sonata and the kaleidoscopic sound world of Schubert's Fantasy.

Lenehan, who is an equally fine musician, moved to the north transept to hear the final work before the interval, Little's richly coloured account of Bach's E major Partita for solo violin. She showed how this amazing and eternally new music can dance. What added to the joy was the ever changing sound of the "Regent" Stradivarius from 1708, which the Royal Academy has loaned her on a more or less permanent basis.

The violin was as much a star of the show as the two musicians. Over 300 years it has gained a truly amazing range of colour with an airy lightness in the upper registers and a glorious rich tone lower down. If an inanimate object can have feelings, it just seemed to relish the virtuoso demands of Tchaikovskiana, the joint tribute by the night's soloists to Swan Lake. It also lapped up the sheer fun of the encore, Monti's Csardas.

To hear Little on such an instrument was a privilege. The organisers of the Dore Abbey Music Festival deserved a big round of applause for bringing her to the opening concert. For next year they have engaged the celebrated pianist John Lill for June 22. Put the date in your diary now. MB