St Peters Church, Newnham, was the great venue for the Royal Forest of Dean Orchestra’s Winter Concert on Saturday (December 14).

The imaginative and seasonal programme included music from the cold lands of Scandinavia, and a visit to a banqueting-hall in the Anglo Saxon north of England on a frosty evening.

It was classical music not all as we know it, with some ground-breaking excursions from conventional classical music in this great celebration of winter.

I counted 43 members of the orchestra, augmented specially on this occasion by two sound engineers.

In its early days, the orchestra relied on visiting conductors and soloists for their performances.

They helped to develop the orchestra, but now the orchestra performs as well or better with local musicians. Inspirational conductor Fiona Crawley has taken over the baton from guest conductors and is now the orchestra’s permanent conductor, and local cor anglaise performer Caron de Burgh was the evening’s soloist for one of the evenings pieces.

All the composers for the performance who weren’t from Finland are members of the orchestra, and they delivered some wonderfully chilly and atmospheric compositions.

The programme consisted of works by Sibelius, the great Finnish composer and Einojuhani Rautavaara, another Finnish composer perhaps less well known, as well as the four pieces by our local composers.

The first item was Sibelius’ patriotic Finlandia tone poem, a gentle protest against the country’s Russian neighbours, evoking the country’s national struggles.

Local composer and performer for a wide range of music from pop to classical Michael English was the composer of the next item, ‘Winter – A Suite for Orchestra’, evocative of a Norwegian lake.

Sibelius’ second item ‘The Swan of Tuonela’ is another of his patriotic pieces, an evocative musical picture of a mythological tragedy, with Caron de Burgh as soloist.

Local composer Jane Pelham took the audience on a musical visit to the Anglo Saxon banqueting hall in ‘From Winter to Winter’, contrasting the warmth of the hall with the coldness outside.

A sparrow flies through the banqueting hall and flies out again, from winter into winter, imaginatively inspired by the works of the Venerable Bede.

There were more birds to come in the final piece, by the other Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara, which was perhaps the most extraordinary piece of music I have ever heard at a concert.

It’s entitled ‘Cantus Arctic's – Concerto for Birds and Orchestra’, and includes electronic effects and partial blackouts to create the appropriate atmosphere.

The reason why the sound engineers are included in the credits for the concert is that they control bird sound effects.

The birds start to chirrup louder and louder as the piece progresses, until at the end the performance ends with the orchestral music and birds fading into the distance.

It was an evocative piece, with effects not usually associated with classical music. But it worked.

I’ve been following our local orchestra for 30 years now, and I can’t remember one that was as well acclaimed at the end of the performance as this was. Congratulations to the orchestra and to Fiona Crawley.