The St. Louis Art Museum's Art After 5 concert series presents free chamber music performances in the Grigg Gallery.

In some ways, it's a less than ideal venue: noisy laughter and the constant hum of talking in the echoing Sculpture Gallery next door sometimes add an unwanted obbligato. But it also captures other listeners, like the tiny girl who responded with her own improvisational dance in the doorway of the next gallery.

Friday night's "French Impressions," with Mark Sparks and Yolanda Kondonassis, was a beautiful, intimate performance by two extraordinary artists.

Kondonassis is an internationally acclaimed harpist, and an extraordinarily gifted one. Sparks, principal flute of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, demonstrated why he's in such demand as a soloist here and elsewhere.

The theme was musical Impressionism, beginning with Spanish and Asian influences on French composers, moving to European influences on Japanese composers, and ending with a very American piece that combined almost every influence imaginable.

They began with exquisite performances of Jacques Ibert's "Entr'acte" and Maurice Ravel's "Pièce en forme de Habanera." "Haru no Umi (Ocean in Springtime) and Toru Takemitsu's "Towards the Sea" demonstrated links between the styles and some specifically Japanese flute techniques; Vincent Persichetti's Serenade No. 10, in eight brief sections, was the witty last word.

The music was well-chosen, beautifully and stylishly played, and presented in a friendly, intimate atmosphere, for a delightful end-of-work-week entr'acte of its own.