IT was while attending a concert at St Albans Abbey last November that I was invited by the young maestro Peter Wadl to review the St Albans' debut of his Watford-based orchestra The Chiltern Philharmonia (writes Jill Barlow).

This confident young man is the kind of person who inspires instant compliance, which is roughly how he has managed to achieve putting together a full symphony orchestra of some 70 players, including many professionals drawn from a wide area, while also teaching music at Watford Grammar School for Boys.

So it was that I went along to St Saviour's Church, St Albans, not knowing at all what to expect.

I was not disappointed. In fact, it was really the night that Watford hit St Albans for six, musically speaking, as the general consensus seemed to be that in Wagner's Mastersingers, the Chiltern Philharmonia produced such a stunningly magnificent sound that it was the best we'd heard in St Albans since the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra last summer.

Even as conductor Peter Wadl approached the rostrum, one could discern from the outset an air of quiet confidence and control.

He conducted with firm precision, but full of vibrant expectation and with feeling for climax in this rousing masterful work, with excellent response particularly from the impressive brass section.

So too in Shostakovitch's Symphony Number 5, he drew from the orchestra the depth of the sound of the opening haunting theme augmented by bass, tuba and trombones.

He caught admirably the jaunty style of the Allegretto, giving incisive lead to the familiar angular tune.

The finale built up via shock waves to a crashing climax followed by tumultuous applause from the substantial audience, including representatives from Watford Grammar School, which had six boys in the orchestra and provided music master Kevin Thorold to sing solo in Mahler's Songs of a Wayfarer.

According to the programme notes, the orchestra's original debut under Peter Wadl in 1988 was proclaimed in The Watford Observer as "This great new orchestra shows signs of genius, its brilliance could not have been billed in advance."

I would echo both these sentiments. It was certainly a good night for the Chiltern Philharmonia and Watford, as well as a treat for us in St Albans.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.