Bergen Philharmonic, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, review In his ten years as Music Director of the Bergen Philharmonic, Andrew Litton has put the orchestra firmly on the map. This has mainly been thanks to their 60-plus CD recordings, but their current UK tour shows how well earned their new profile is. Unlike some venues, Manchester was not rewarded with Delius's rarely heard tone poem On the Mountain. Instead we were treated to a lollipop in the form of the first suite from Grieg's Peer Gynt. Here the main challenge for a Norwegian orchestra, one might assume, would be not to sit back and play on autopilot. Happily Litton chose not to over-correct with fussy interventions. He simply set the frame for natural phrasing and let the orchestra add suppleness and affection in the way it knows best. The Death of Ase showed off string tone of striking weight and unanimity, and if the ensemble wobbled slightly in Anitra's Dance, its delicacy and poise were still remarkable, as was the controlled accumulation of the Hall of the Mountain King. In Liszt's Second Piano Concerto, another audience-pleaser, Jean-Yves Thibaudet oozed class from every pore - at least to start with. Poetry and fire were held in fine balance, and his dialogue with the orchestra was a delight. Having demonstrated so much glamour and aplomb, Thibaudet then rather let things go his head, and a surprising amount of approximation and rushing crept into his bravura playing. That might have been a price worth paying for the general adrenaline rush, but it was a shame that the swagger of the opening pages was never quite regained. Swagger is the prevailing mood of Strauss's Ein Heldenleben, where again the solidity of the Bergen strings provided a superb foundation. Litton's unobtrusive way with balance and rhythmic elan was finely judged. But this was above all an airy performance. It took wing from the very start, and leader David Stewart's violin solos made for a flighty and feisty impersonation of Frau Strauss. Probably nothing can wholly redeem the hubristic self-quotations of 'The Hero's Works of Peace," but Litton's sure feel for the architecture of the piece came close. Two tactfully chosen and beautifully executed encores - 'Tough her Soft Lips and Part" from Walton's film score for Henry V, and the Tarantella from Britten's Soirées musicales - topped off a more than impressive evening.