Auckland Chamber Orchestra at the Town Hall Concert Chamber

The Auckland Chamber Orchestra has earned its niche in the city's musical life and it was encouraging to find the final concert of this year attracting a slightly larger audience than usual.

The theme of the programme was The Music of Scandinavia, following just a few nights after the Auckland Philharmonia's Nordic Night.

And, lest we forgot which part of the globe we were about to visit, the orchestra's chairman, Frank Olsson, introduced the event with somefervent Swedish a cappella, welcoming both the audience and spring.

Spring was certainly evident in the freshness of Grieg's Holberg Suite. Conductor Peter Scholes unfolded its Prelude with just the sense of expectation - its Air was insinuatingly lyrical.

Elsewhere, there were a few clouds where skies should have been blue.

The Sarabande exposed weaknesses in some sections of the orchestra as themes ran from violins to cellos and the final Rigaudon had leader Dianna Cochrane falling into some intonation that even the most rustic of Hardanger fiddlers would not sanction.

There was more consistency in Sibelius' Rakastava, which opened the second half of the concert. Cochrane was beautifully at ease with her solo in the third movement, there was an admirable richness of texture in the first movement, and the muted tones of The Lover's Path were seductive.

What a pleasure it was to experience Martin Lee's artistry in Soderlundh's Concertino for Oboe and String Orchestra. This 1944 score is lightweight stuff, very similar to the small-scale English music from the 1940s and 1950s that is now enjoying a minor renaissance.

Such music depends on sprightly performances and Lee, nonchalantly immaculate in tone and line, proved himself a master, while the other musicians were sympathetic colleagues.

Any professional orchestra would be honoured to have Alexa Still as soloist and, on this visit, she brought the Nielsen Flute Concerto.

The Danish composer himself decreed this a very daring and highly spicy score and, 80 years later, it still seems remarkably free-wheeling.

Still caught this, with a rare humour in her musical banter with the other players, making much of Nielsen's sometimes folkish side-trips.