The acoustics put to shame the Guild Hall just down the road. They are vibrant, physical, and while difficult to keep the lid on sometimes, melded the ensemble seamlessly into a burgeoning halo of sound.

The small force of around 30 professional musicians garnered from established orchestras throughout the UK seemed to be twice that number at last night's concert. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the opening, Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for four wind instruments.

All four soloists were outstanding - clarinettist Peter Sparks, bassonist Elizabeth Hesketh, horn player Angela Barnes and especially oboeist Rachael Clegg - and it was a revelation to hear this charming work take on an almost symphonic dimension in the Minster's small confines.

Yet more gripping was the Shostakovich Chamber Symphony, an arrangement by Rudolf Barshai of the composer's eighth string quartet, perhaps his bleakest work - and an adventurous inclusion in a programme billed as a summer serenade.

Shostakovich wrote the work 'To the Memory of the Vctims of Fascism and War' after seeing the terrible aftermath of the Allied firebombing of Dresden.

Under the direction of Andrew Watkinson (of The Endellion Quartet), there was an almost visual savagery from the Sinfonietta in the fast sections and a despairing bleakness in the deeply introspective slow ones.

The effort left Watkinson visibly drained and there was a suitably shocked silence before the audience applause.

Perhaps there is nowhere more fitting for this music than in a church, haunted as the European mind still is by images of skeletal religious ruins half standing amid the rubble of war.

The sun returned with Mendelssohn's 'Italian' Symphony No 4 - "It's more cheerful than the Shostakovich, or at least we hope it is," said Watkinson introducing it - played at a blistering pace.

This is my first encounter with The Lancashire Sinfonietta, despite this being its 12th season, and this was one of my most memorable concerts of the year.

Trevor Willis