Chichester Symphony Orchestra in Chichester

 Chichester Symphony Orchestra, Chichester Cathedral, October 29

Prokofiev's not the easiest composer to file away in a category. Alongside his popular classics like the troika ride, Romeo and Juliet and Peter and the Wolf, there are some more challenging symphonies and concertos. But I'm sure nobody would want to be reduced to a member of a category and his 'Classical' Symphony no. 1 jumps out of its pastiche title like a jack-in-a-box.

It is good-humoured, even humorous, and compact. Simon Wilkins has his players well-organized under his concise, unfussy direction and their sound is beautifully balanced. The whole orchestra are given their moments and I was left mainly wondering how much Prokofiev had lifted from Beethoven, if anything, by way of homage or if it was just my imagination. It was an obvious stand-out and a great pleasure throughout.

Otherwise we were English which for the most part in the first half of the C20th means either marching, reflecting on war or pastoral. First, Elgar's Chanson de Matin was silky smooth with sympathetic pizzicato in the bass. Vaughan-Williams's English Folk Song Suite began with a march featuring powerful brass that would not be out of place as part of the traditional last night of the Proms sequence, the oboe was featured to great effect in the tenebrous intermezzo before the more familiar march was both rousing and full of jollity.

In a further call in recent weeks to Gustav Holst, who is interred only a few yards away and whose 150th anniversary is not long passed, A Somerset Rhapsody has a lone oboe  accompanied by delicate strings before it warms and widens with brass providing more panoramic views.

It's hardly fair on the CSO that my most recent experience of orchestral concerts was two by the Berlin Philharmonic but there's more to life than being the best in the world. The CSO filled every seat Chichester Cathedral could find and then some were standing and so it was as packed as a sell-out Albert Hall if not more so which is a tribute to this annual highlight of the lunchtime programme as well as showing how many friends they have.

After the Prokofiev, Elgar's Chanson de Nuit neatly book-ended a hugely enjoyable concert, rich and velvety with prominent lower strings augmented by horns, and took us to a restful conclusion.