An admiring audience enjoyed the Eastbourne Concert Orchestra’s sparkling program of seasonal favorites on Tuesday 7 December at All Saints Church, Grange Road in Eastbourne.

With the safety of Covid in mind, public Christmas carols have been replaced by orchestral pieces containing traditional Christmas carols and 20th century carols. Vocals were featured in medleys by Vaughan Williams (Song of Sussex and O Little Town of Bethlehem) and Leroy Anderson (Good King Wenceslas, Silent Night, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing and O Come All Ye Faithful) and an overture based on colorful Christmas carols with Wagner accents.

The orchestra was dressed in a traditional understated black for the first half, which contained the most serious music: Vaughan Williams’ medley, Johann Strauss the Younger’s Perpetuum Mobile, and a suite of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake music.

The music after the intermission was more secular and more popular in style. It featured the evergreen golden and silver waltz by Franz Lehar, the famous Austrian operetta composer, a selection of Me and My Gal (a reminiscence of the 1930s) and an Americana spell in “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year ”and“ White Christmas. ”Players decorated their outfits accordingly with garlands, Christmas hats and reindeer horns; two brass players even wore fabric-like wrapping paper costumes. of Christmas.

All sections of the orchestra had solos in the Perpetuum Mobile, including the timpani, after the woodwinders demonstrated their ease. In Le Lac des Cygnes, the oboe solos produced their well-calculated plaintive effect and the Pas de Deux introduced the harpist’s luxurious arabesques. The string section supported both the lyrical melody and the accompaniment of the golden and silver waltz. There were appealing trumpet solos in Irving Berlin’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year and White Christmas and the brass section made a jazzy contribution in Leroy Anderson’s Sleigh Ride with a comedic twist at the end.

The orchestra had been well prepared by its conductor, Simon Gower, who led the proceedings with his usual good humor and enthusiasm.

Overture: Hansel and Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck

Perpetuum Mobile by Johann Strauss the Younger

A Vaughan Williams Christmas

Ballet suite: Swan Lake by Pyotr Tchaikovsky

A Christmas Overture by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

Gold and Silver Waltz by Franz Lehar

Medley: The Most Wonderful Christmas

Me and My Gal selection by Noel Gay

A Leroy Anderson Christmas Festival

White Christmas by Irving Berlin

Sleigh ride by Leroy Anderson