The Bermuda Festival’s fortieth anniversary year appropriately began with a concert by the English Chamber Orchestra, who returned to Bermuda and the Earl Cameron Theatre on Friday evening.

They have performed more than any other performer or group of performers since the inception of this major Bermuda arts event.

While the focus was on the familiar as the first notes sounded, they were the first notes of a little known piece by a modern composer who promoted folk tunes, some well known and others not, to new and exquisite heights.

The rough and ready Percy Grainger, who was born in Australia 1882, and died in 1961, spent his life collecting and arranging folk songs mostly from the British Isles and Europe.

For this attender of the concert, Grainger is a wonderful discovery. Handel in the Strand (Clog Dance) was a quintessentially English and charming little piece, lively and lighthearted, which immediately introduced the audience to this orchestra’s style; it is one with a strong sense of the beat and a revelling in textural and dynamic complexities.

The second piece is well known as The Londonerry Air, or O Danny Boy. The wistful Irish Tune from County Derry was undertaken delicately, and yet with a strong sense of the rhythm and interwoven textures.

The final of this trio was the quick and lively composition Molly on the Shore, another delightful short piece recreated from Irish reels.

This concert’s programme incorporated a number of pieces with connections with the water, and appropriately, for this major anniversary, included majestic and celebratory works as well.

Apres un reve for cello and string orchestra by Gabriel Faure, however, was not one of those.

The composer set the poem Apres un reve — or After a dream — to music, and it was immediately stunning, evocative and rich, and gorgeously phrased. Cellist Caroline Dale emphatically recites the poem — “After a Dream In a sleep charmed by your image I dreamed of happiness, a passionate illusion ... Alas, sad awakening from dreams! I call to you, O night, give me back your delusions ... Return, O mysterious night!” — which weighed with the subtle but beautifully balanced orchestral accompaniment, creating in a sense of wistfulness and great sadness.

Schubert’s Adagio and Rondo in A for violin and string orchestra is one of Franz Schubert’s rare ‘concerted’ works.

This turn of the 19th century piece opens with an expansive section for the orchestra before the violin bursts through, like the sun through the clouds, with a sparkling ‘rising flourish’ as the programme notes say.

The various landscapes of this work provided a wonderful opportunity for violin soloist Stephanie Gonley together with the solo cellist Ms Dale to show the audience how technically superb and what stylish musicians they are. Both musicians gave beautifully coloured renderings, meticulous and crisp, and with magnificent dynamics.

Henry Purcell brought to the stage Bermuda’s own Matthew Ross, a young musician whose instrument is the trumpet.

The programme notes explain that the fact Purcell had a “profound understanding of the capabilities of the natural (valveless) trumpet of his day is evident in the fanfare figures and ‘calls to arms’ of the outer movements ...” Here was the first of the celebratory, regal pieces that marked the programme on Friday evening.

This piece — Trumpet Sonata in D — is classic Purcell, clearly directed and at the same time, with its intricacies. The trumpeter produced an enchanting and clear tone, and gave both movements a broad dynamic range, breathing heart into the piece. He performed the two Allegro movements; the central Adagio, not performed, was for strings only.

Antonio Vivaldi’s works are typically as lyrical as they are filled with life.

Was he inspired by Venice, the city on water? It is hard to imagine that he was not, and the fluidity of his style seem to attest to that.

This Concerto for violin and cello in B flat is emphatically Vivialdi, and it is gorgeous. In the hands of the English Chamber Orchestra this piece is scintillating and sparkles like light bounding off the water.

The musicians imbued the first movement, the complex allegro, with a crystalline quality before moving into the lyrical sections.

Slow and smooth, the undulating Andante was enlivened with vibrato and subtle dynamics. The violin solo aspects in the Allegro molto in the hands of Ms Gonley shone as she juxtaposed the orchestra’s steady and rhythmic framework with her brightly coloured, fast-paced rendering of Vivaldi’s dancing rhythms.

The Suite from The Water Music is considered one of George Frederic Handel’s best pieces of music.

The programme notes explain it was composed for King George I and was performed on a barge as the King and many of his most important subjects floated in their own barges down the River Thames.

This majestic performance by the orchestra was completely right for a royal progress. Steady and evenly paced, it evokes the splendour of the occasion.

The fun of this piece is how it regularly changes mood, but never loses any of its dignity — in part by returning to the processional pace, all beautifully captured by The English Chamber Orchestra.

Formality with a light spirit was the lasting impression of this evening of wonderful music — hitting exactly the right note for the beginning of this year’s 40th Bermuda Festival