Amadeus Chamber Orchestra 'proved themselves to be in the top flight of pro-am orchestras'

Over many years one of the delights of concert-going in St Albans has been performances by the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra.

Rarely have they failed to delight and their concert at St Saviour’s Church in St Albans on Saturday was no exception, particularly as it saw the return of its Conductor Emeritus Simon Thompson and featured its outstanding principal flautist, Janna Hüneke.

Janna Hüneke, principal flautist of the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra. (Image: Supplied by Amadeus Chamber Orchestra.)

Additionally, the programme included three rarely performed works by well-known composers – Dvorak’s Czech Suite, Mozart’s Andante in C Major K315, and Lennox Berkeley’s arrangement of Poulenc’s Flute Sonata.

The concert opened with Dvorak’s Czech Suite, a delightful five-part work heavily influenced by the folk music of his homeland.

The two works for solo flute and orchestra followed. The Mozart Andante might just have sounded a little familiar to those hearing it for the first time because of some similarities to music in his late opera The Magic Flute.

Composed 200 years later, Poulenc’s Flute Sonata is a vivacious and thoroughly delightful work.

In both pieces Janna Hüneke showed her tremendous virtuosity with outstanding performance which thrilled the large audience and as expected, the orchestra provided fine accompaniment.

Rounding off the evening was a performance of Beethoven’s second symphony.

Although it is not the most popular of his nine symphonies, it has great significance, coming at a time when his deafness was becoming more apparent and his first in the Romantic style.

Amadeus and Simon Thompson once more excelled in their performance, presenting a tight crispness of play in an excellent performance.

Once more they proved themselves to be in the top flight of pro-am orchestras.