The Chacony by Henry Purcell (arranged by Britten) which opened this tribute to Benjamin Britten started with the most sumptuous string tone as befitted this splendid work. As it progressed, however, the influence of Britten on the scoring created a slightly less pleasing undertone – a fact about which we were warned by the conductor Sam Laughton in his introduction.

It was, nevertheless, a fine performance In the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings by Britten which followed there was no such problem – this was Britten at his best.

The strings, rarely in the limelight, gave excellent support to the two outstanding soloists – tenor, Bene’t Coldstream, whose light and refined tones were admirably suited to the six English poems which make up this work; in perfect balance with hornist, Keith Maries, whose skilful playing of this technically demanding work was near perfect.

The Prologue amd Epilogue, for horn alone, call for natural harmonics, some out of tune, but whose weird sounds managed to leave the listener strangely satisfied.

Sam Laughton explained that, due to the size of orchestra required, the Adagietto from Symphony No 5 was the only work of Mahler this orchestra could hope to tackle. However, to produce the music with which so many of us are familiar, this group of players really needed to be larger.

Whilst all the notes were duly and confidently played, at times the effects were not what we were expecting and, regretfully, the harp tended to dominate rather than being part of the texture.

Mozart’s little-heard Symphony No 33 in B flat brought the concert to a tumultuous conclusion. This is the most lightly orchestrated of all Mozart’s symphonies and the addition of the few wind provided some of the most delicate moments of the evening, especially in the first three movements.

The finale was phenomenally fast and called for a level of ensemble which was generally achieved, although the hugely repetitive nature of the music did not make this easy.

Quite breath taking!

By David Hayes