Even though St Albans pianist Julian Trevelyan is only 16 he is already developing both a national and international following.

His performance with the Hertfordshire Philharmonia on Saturday of Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A Minor was completely riveting and wonderfully fluent.

While the orchestra under Jacques Cohen performed superbly, it was Julian’s performance which truly excelled. The quality and interpretation of the performance was what might be expected from a performer with far more maturity.

His handling of the cadenza at the end of the first movement was superb and the performance of the delicate opening second movement was sublime.

The concerto is part of repertoire he is preparing for the Marguerite Long Piano competition in Paris later this month where he is the youngest contestant by three years and the only one from the UK.

If his performance on Saturday was anything to go by he should do at least as well as he did at another competition in Paris earlier this year when he won a major award.

In St Albans on Saturday his performance of the Schumann concerto was greeted with rapture and the audience was rewarded with a stunning encore in the shape of the first movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No 6 in F sharp major.

The concert had opened with a first rate performance of Mendelssohn’s much loved Hebrides Overture and concluded with Dvorak’s 7th Symphony.

The wonderful bassoon and cello opening was particularly good and the rest of the overture proved an excellent opening to the evening.

Unfortunately I felt the performance of the symphony was not quite up to the standard of the rest of the concert. There were certainly some issues with the violins although the performance from the woodwinds was extremely good

But overall the orchestra provided a fine evening of music and Jacques Cohen once more showed himself to be a fine interpreter of great classics.

JOHN MANNING