Southbank London Classical Events

Among the clutch of works commissioned by the Southbank Centre to mark the reopening of the Royal Festival Hall two years ago, Heiner Goebbels’s Songs Of Wars I Have Seen stood head and shoulders above the others, for its originality and touching eloquence, with words and music interwoven with subtlety and theatrical charm in the way that is singularly Goebbels. Because it is scored for both modern and period instruments, and requires the female instrumentalists involved to deliver the laconic texts by Gertrude Stein, performances are always likely to be rare events. But the Southbank has brought together again the two ensembles who gave the first performance, the London Sinfonietta and the Orchestra Of The Age Of Enlightenment, for a repeat as part of Ether 09. Songs Of Wars I Have Seen forms half of a double bill with Goebbels’s Sampler Suite, the instrumental element in one of his earlier multimedia works, Surrogate Cities.

• Queen Elizabeth Hall, SE1, Fri