This was an evening of memories. For me, the very first Sinfonia concert at the Wycombe Swan came vividly to mind. The work was Haydn’s Creation, the conductor Richard Hickox (pictured), the orchestra’s founding music director. As soloist James Gilchrist reached the words “the gloomy shades of ancient night”, dead on cue, all the stage lighting failed, and Hickox had to taxi the performance to a carefully controlled standstill. Both conductor and soloist got the giggles.

But now, some eight years later, the memories are much more poignant. Last November, Richard Hickox died suddenly, and this was the first concert given since then by his orchestra in his local town (his father was Vicar of Stokenchurch). His mother and sister were in the audience. Poignantly, too, the conductor’s space was left empty, with the concert being directed from the leader’s chair by Nicholas Ward. Between the musical items, Ward spoke movingly of Hickox’s never flagging ability to enthuse both amateur and professional musicians – he told of a “dreadfully flat” Spanish choir “miraculously” brought up to pitch during a very short rehearsal. He told, too, of the Sinfonia football match played on a beach after a concert: “Richard was sent off, into the sea, after an unacceptable tackle on a violinist”.

Hickox was a great champion of British music, so Finzi’s clarinet concerto made an ideal centrepiece to this concert. It’s very much in the English pastoral tradition, and here encouraged some lyrically expressive string playing, with the slow movement displaying an elegiac, and unmistakably English calm. The clarinet is often in powerful and vehement contrast to the string backing, however, as Sarah Williamson clearly demonstrated in her fine performance.

Surrounding the Finzi, there was a lively start to Mozart’s Divertimento in F major, K138, and there was exuberant playing, too, in Astor Piazzolla’s earthy tango Verano Porteño. The final work was Dvorák’s Serenade for strings, which was expansively played, but with plenty of added bite where required. Throughout this concert, you felt that the Sinfonia was playing with real commitment and affection for its late music director.