The wondrous sound of nearly a full sinfonia-size orchestra filled the Wiltshire Music Centre not only with sound but, significantly, with people.

And, of course, with the City of London Sinfonia came the brilliant, ebullient Michael Collins, clarinettist extraordinary, as conductor – sans baton.

It was an evening to savour. And for the rather unexpected reason that the world premiere of a commissioned piece by Gwilym Simcock, On a Piece of Tapestry, was not only fascinating to hear but made you quite amenable to hearing it again.

Naturally, Collins and his clarinet were centre stage, but I fancy both he and Simcock, present to hear it, were slightly surprised by the enthusiastic reception given by the audience.

Based on two poems by George Santayana, it had succulent textures ranging from the spooky to intriguing dynamics.

Collins’s conducting of Mozart’s Magic Flute overture brought a robust and sparkly performance but it was in the other Mozart work, his last orchestral offering, the famous Clarinet Concerto in A Major, that Collins showed what a superb instrumentalist he is.

He was playing a basset-clarinet, designed by Stadler, which added four lower notes to a clarinet. It’s one thing to reach those; quite another to play them so quietly and melodically as Collins did.