Serenade for Somerset House

London has gained an exciting new open-air concert venue right in the heart of the city - the courtyard of Somerset House. The venue was inaugurated last night by soloists from the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in the first of a series of summer concerts.

Using unamplified period instruments, they played Mozart's Serenade in B flat, a piece composed in 1780 and chosen because it is almost contemporary with Somerset House itself.

However, on this occasion, Mozart found himself up against serious competition from a band of squawking seagulls circling overhead. He eventually prevailed in an extended skirmish which was observed with interest by a sell-out audience of 700 concertgoers.

They had paid £11 to sit in the deckchairs or at the tables provided, or £3 to squat or stand on the surrounding cobbles.

"More! More!" declared Tom Smith, a 24-year-old architecture student, as the sun went down on the finale. "It's a very good idea. It's just what the space should be used for," he added.

His companion Susie Fuller, 22, a theatre agent, was equally smitten, saying: "You could hear the music perfectly."

Sir Jeremy Isaacs, a trustee of Somerset House, deemed the occasion "a wonderful success" as did theatre director Deborah Warner.

"It was marvellous," she said. "I like the natural effect. London needs more music and fewer sea gulls."

Not everyone was so content, especially those at the back of the courtyard who really had to concentrate to hear the quieter passages. One of them, Yale student Andrew Heid, 21, even dared to wonder whether some amplification might be in order, though amplification is a dirty word in this purist environment.

The relaxed tone of the evening had been set by Tony Pay, clarinettist for the OAE, when he introduced the programme.

"Music-making was very informal in the 18th century," he told the audience.

"At the opera, people talked, drank, ate and sometimes even made love."

As far as could be ascertained, noone went that far last night but, thanks to a bar conveniently placed in the corner of the courtyard, drink was much in evidence.

The concert was the first in a series designed to test the effectiveness of the new canopied concert platform, the viability of the courtyard as a venue and the level of public interest in such events.

Musicians from the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment will be making two more visits next month and the City of London Sinfonia will be bringing their brass ensemble.

Later in the summer the series broadens its appeal by offering Lambchop, "Nashville's finest country soul pioneers" and a production of Shakespeare's The Tempest.