THE church was beautifully decked in autumn colours with a superb arrangement of sunflowers, russet foliage, fruit and vegetables celebrating the harvest and providing a delightful backdrop for the first in the Classical Cleveland winter season of music featuring the young guitarist Sam Rodwell.

Rodwell is in his fourth year of study at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester from where so many of the young talented performers come who bring such a marvellous standard of music here in North Yorkshire.

Rodwell introduced the "guitalele" – a pleasing cross between a guitar and a uke. It has a lovely sound, and Rodwell demonstrated its scope by performing John Dowland’s lute Fantasia No 7 involving high speed fingering and stopping. It is a very attractive short work which Rodwell accomplished beautifully on his guitalele.

He recalled thinking he had “made it” when he could play the signature tune of The South Bank Show – Paganini’s Caprice No. 24 in A minor. Here again he amazed us by the sustained ultra-rapid fingering demanded by this work which develops to an extent never fully performed on the television show. It is a gorgeous piece and was a really superb performance.

Guitar music by Spanish composer Isaac Albeniz caught the flavour of Spain beautifully in his Sevilla – rich, creamy and lovely, full of gorgeous figures in the sumptuous idioms of Spain, again played with style and expression.

Antonio José was executed by the Falangists during the Spanish civil war and his Sonata for Guitar in four movements is the only guitar work he left. It is a beautiful piece, full of varied rhythms with a very sweet pavane, and an outstanding allegro con brio which Rodwell performed with a great sense of mood and tone – altogether excellent.

The next concert in the series is on Thursday, November 3, with Victor Lim, piano.

Irene MacDonald