It is always a pleasure to go to a concert in St Barnabas Church in Jericho. Built in the Victorian era to serve the poor, it is a striking church with its square campanile tower and its gorgeous and very unusual interior. The acoustics also lend themselves to concerts.

The first thing to note about the Oxford University Press Orchestra is how big it is. The orchestra is made up of over 50 players, including such instruments such as the xylophone and the harp. The strings alone comprise nearly 30 players. Their conductor, Margarita Mikhailova, introduced the pieces chosen: unfortunately, it was hard to hear what she was saying but the choice was deliberately light and with humour. Apart from the last piece, this was definitely the theme of the night.

The concert started with Rossini’s L’Italiana in Algeri overture – a gentle pizzicato start with a sudden interruption of percussion and then a beautiful floating flute.With the talents of all the orchestra needed to hold the music together, as indeed they do, the overture builds to a grand crescendo, then drops again and so it goes on. It is light and engaging.

Haydn’s Symphony no 94 ‘Surprise’ derives its name from a single loud chord which Haydn apparently said was to “make the ladies scream”. The chord is certainly a surprise in what seems to be a gentle start and would certainly wake anyone dozing off. According to the notes, Haydn was the most universally beloved composer of his lifetime and this joyful symphony shows his talent.

Dvorak’s Humoresque No. 7 introduces a wonderful harp part: at times this piece is light (apparently the sound of a train) and at times lyrical and gentle with the harp and a singing violin part. It was hard to see some of the orchestra sitting at the back but the conductor asked the different parts of the orchestra to stand up at the end of the piece they had starred in, so they got their well-deserved bit of the limelight.

After an overly long interval, the orchestra treated us to the most humorous piece of the evening – Kabalevsky’s The Comedians. The ten short movements depict a travelling group of comedians: certainly, in the Prologue, you can picture Laurel and Hardy getting into some terrible trouble perhaps involving a car chase. In the March, the picture is perhaps of Charlie Chaplin shuffling along in his distinctive style, stopping, musing then walking on. The so-called Waltz is a waltz which in fact cannot hold itself together and collapses. The Pantomime is rather dark and threatening, Little Lyrical Scene is indeed a lyrical interlude but the others are lively and engaging. The xylophone comes to the fore in this piece.

The last piece, Cerka, the third poem from Smetana’s Ma Vlast, stands out from the others in that it is not humorous, rather the opposite in fact.Cerka is a story of love and revenge, a rousing, romantic piece of music.

The music was very well chosen to show off the orchestra’s diverse talents and this it did par excellence.