The Loughborough Orchestra’s Winter Concert got off to a stirring start with Mendelssohn’s Hebrides Overture, Fingal’s Cave. This dramatic piece was one of the first intended to depict a mood and set a scene, and the orchestra brought the power of the waves into Loughborough’s Parish Church on Saturday 26 January. This was followed by Haydn’s Oboe Concerto in D performed beautifully by guest soloist Rosie Curtis. The inclusion of this piece was made all the more poignant by the death at 97 of Lady Barbirolli only the previous day. Lady Barbirolli was an oboist of the highest distinction and would have been proud of the performance which was dedicated to her. The audience thought so too with tremendous applause for Rosie and her wonderfully lyrical playing. After the interval the orchestra played Siegfried Idyll by Richard Wagner. Composed as a birthday gift of love to Cosima the music is both beautiful and complex, and the wind and brass wove their melodies into and above the body of the strings before ending as quietly as it had begun. The concert ended with Schumann’s Overture, Scherzo and Finale with its bouncy rhythms, the Finale being particularly driven, and with typical Schumann brass scoring the concert was brought to a rousing conclusion