There are times when you want live music to leave you shaken and stirred. But these chilly evenings, there is much to be said for a cosy fireside-style session instead.

The hall’s warmth (not so welcome in summer) offered an ideal setting for the Souza Winds, a quintet whose relaxed, genial tone proved just the tonic. Nor was their largely 20th-century programme in any way demanding.

It is only 30 years since Gustav Holst’s Wind Quintet of 1903 enjoyed its premiere, after the score went astray. But its youthful confidence and easy-going tunefulness bears out the truth that A flat is often a key of mellow composure.

Certainly, the Souzas found a bucolic gentleness in its opening that was to recur throughout the evening.

The minuet sounded a little studied but the closing theme and variations more than compensated.

Ligeti’s Six Bagatelles, spangled with little surprises like a Christmas stocking, were thrown off wittily and not taken too seriously.

In similar vein, Jean Françaix’s Wind Quartet hovers between the nursery and caricature, a true divertissement. The Souzas understood its off-beat banter, but were properly taut in the rapid last two movements.

Three Mozart arias, in anonymous arrangements, had the virtue of revealing the witty interplay of Mozart’s accompanying voices. Nielsen’s Wind Quintet, straight out of the neo-classic mood of the 1920s, was shapely, especially in its finale, where bassoon and horn showed their mettle.

All good fireside stuff – and none the worse for that.