Festival audiences, made a welcome return on Sunday evening and, with the great Pinchas Zukerman at the musical helm, provided a night that will long be remembered.

This first programme, devoted to Baroque music, included works by Handel, Bach and Vivaldi.

Israeli-born Zukerman, who appears regularly with the ECO as both conductor and soloist, took to the podium for the opening work, a radiant account of Handel's Water Music, enhanced by some unexpectedly enthusiastic heel-tapping accompaniment by the conductor.

By all accounts, the composer wrote three `entertainment' suites in all, the most famous being that written in 1717 for George I's legendary party when the royal court floated down the Thames on barges as Handel's celebratory music echoed through the night skies. Fanfares, dances (including the well-known Hornpipe) and a veritable feast of melodic instrumental airs featuring solos from oboes, horns and trumpets, made it a perfect opening for this supremely gifted group of musicians.

Johann Sebastian Bach wrote two concertos for the violin while he was Kapellmeister for the Prince of Anhalt-Kothen. Zukerman chose his Concerto No.

2 in E major, a work conceived for a small orchestra of four-part strings and harpsichord continuo (the name of this excellent soloist who provided that vital Baroque underpinning throughout the concert was unaccountably omitted from the programme).

Lacking the bravura displays that become a focal part of the great Romantic concertos, this is, nevertheless, a work of haunting beauty, and remains a musical treasure in that it represents Bach's unique gift in raising the status of the solo concerto -- only Vivaldi had done this before him.

This was chamber music at its most sublime, Zukerman joining the orchestra in the opening principal theme, his incomparable bow allowing the melodic line to gently soar above the lower strings. The slow movement was wistfully poignant before Zukerman swept into the transforming, dance-like rhythms of the final allegro.

The second half of the programme was devoted to one of the best known works from the Baroque repertoire.

The Four Seasons, written in 1725, is a set of four solo concertos representing Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, each idiomatic section echoing the ongoing cycle of nature.

Hardly profound, each concerto nevertheless brims with atmospheric melodies and audacious musical devices that delight even the most jaded ear. Who could fail to be bewitched by his blend of rustic simplicity, peasant dances and the crackling pizzicato of winter firesides, presented with such musical sophistication? Zukerman, a charismatic figure who used his bow to conduct this magnificent orchestra in the relatively brief interludes when he was not carrying the solo, was brilliantly in command throughout. Commencing with the shepherd's song of Spring sounding evocatively through an awakening earth in the gorgeous slow movement, his miraculous bowing -- at once, delicate, shimmering and joyful -- went on the capture the flying scales of gambolling dancers. This was followed by the atmospheric murmurings of lush summer with its buzzing flies, thundery storms and cooing doves before giving way to `the season of mellow fruitfulness', closing with the crisply propulsive melody of the final dance-like allegro. Winter, perhaps the loveliest of all these `seasons', was a miracle of ensemble playing, as inexorable coldness gripped the strings, with Zukerman exquisitely etching the poignant melody of the largo as he finally wove these diverse moods into a musical whole. As the last movement reached its climax, Zukerman smiled, if not at the thought that, if this was winter, spring could not be far behind, then perhaps at the realisation that this marathon night was finally at an end.

Responding to the ovation that followed, he impishly acceded to the request for an encore with a solo rendition of Brahms' Lullaby and, flourishing his bow in the air, asked the audience to "hum along, come on,'' -- which they did.

A happy ending to an evening of musicianship that must surely rank among the very highest in the last 25 years of Festival performances.

PATRICIA CALNAN Pinchas Zukerman REVIEW REV THEATRE THR