CONGRATULATIONS to the Lakeland Sinfonia Concert Society for planning such an interesting and enterprising programme as that given recently by the society's orchestra.

Of the five works heard, only one - Mozart's Don Giovanni overture - could be described as being in the main stream of current orchestral repertoire; the others were some way from it.

Mozart's overture is, of course, gloriously familiar to most of us but perhaps some may have been sometimes disappointed by the level of playing - the tuning took time to settle down, there was some uncharacteristic raggedness among the strings and, generally, a lacklustre air was prevalent.

Walton's Lento (from 'Sonata for Strings') provides difficulties for a small section needing to produce an effective body of sound.

There were misdemeanours of intonation, a tentativeness, too, but the performance did contain much warm and sensitive playing.

Then - a transformation! A heady mixture of Andreas Boyde's exhilarating, scintillating pianism, some splendid trumpet playing from Mark O'Keefe and an increase of conductor's vitality on the part of Simon Wright lifted the orchestra's performance marvellously.

Shostakovich's brilliant Piano Concerto No.

1 served as the catalyst here and the Sinfonia rose heroically to its challenges.

David Johnson, composer of Dawn Call for Trumpet and Orchestra (1991), heard a pleasing account of his short atmospheric concerto and, finally, an attractive early 19th century Symphony by Jan Vorsek - Jan Who? - concluded the evening.

Delectable first horn work and some totally committed playing from the Sinfonia sent us all to our beds in happy frames of mind.

BVP.