In its new publicity snaps the Northern Sinfonia is pictured bizarrely perched atop the giant glass-bubble roof of Norman Foster's Sage. The stunt looks mad. One gust of wind, you feel, and 40 fine musicians could make a very big splash in the Tyne. But it's also highly symbolic. In less than four years the Sage has become one of the world's most admired centres for music. And the Sinfonia has raised its game to match its new home.

To mark its own 50th anniversary, for instance, it is mounting a cycle of Beethoven's symphonies, performed chronologically and in quick succession. As far as is known, it's the first that northeast England has ever heard. And on the strength of this opening instalment, it promises to be a lively journey.

Mind you, this concert included Symphony No 1 only. And although that was flamboyantly characterised with punchy syncopations and pungent wind-playing under the direction of the Sinfonia's resident maestro, Thomas Zehetmair, it was overshadowed by Zehetmair's own solo performance in Beethoven's Violin Concerto. That was a quirky mixture of virtuoso bravado - the allegros scintillatingly mercurial - and improvisatory freedom. Zehetmair's volatile mood changes, bold tempo variations and sometimes wilful roughness all created a sense of familiar music minted afresh.

And in deference to the ideal that a Beethoven cycle should contain nothing but Beethoven's notes, Zehetmair also produced a Beethoven cadenza for a concerto generally supposed to have none surviving. It was the striking one that Beethoven wrote for a piano transcription of the work - here transcribed back for a violin cascading into agitated double-stopping and a timpanist constantly recalling the concerto's opening bar.

Whether Zehetmair galvanises Beethoven as a conductor in the way that he galvanises as a violinist remains an arguable point. The Sinfonia seemed to play rather more precisely when he wasn't waving his arms about. Judge for yourself when Radio 3 broadcasts the concert on October 17.

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