Jubilee weekend may be over, but the festive spirit is still very much alive and kicking — as the Philharmonia Orchestra made clear in Friday’s concert at the Sheldonian, which brought the current Music at Oxford season to a suitably glorious finish. Walton’s Crown Imperial was the perfect opener; first performed at the Coronation of George VI, and then in a revised format at the Coronation of Elizabeth II, it has all the regal splendour you would expect from such a piece, and on Friday conductor Martyn Brabbins made sure it provided an exciting and stirring start to the evening.

Delius may seem a less obvious choice for a Jubilee concert; although born in England, he spent most of his adult life in France, first in Paris and later in Fontainebleau. But his Cello Concerto was written during a brief stay in England in 1921, and its inclusion here was in homage to the composer’s 150th birthday.

Cello maestro and Delius expert Julian Lloyd Webber conjured up sounds of exquisite sweetness in a performance imbued with tenderness and eloquence, maintaining an emotional intensity throughout this extraordinary, one-movement rhapsody in which melodies pour out like a fast-flowing current before the piece comes to a faltering, uncertain finish. Its pensiveness, beautifully realised here by Lloyd Webber, stems from the composer’s certainty that this would be his final great work as a consequence of his failing health; little could he know then that a young Yorkshire composer, Eric Fenby, would spearhead a late resurgence during the last six years of his life.

And so to the final piece — Elgar’s glorious Symphony No.1, with its characteristically majestic theme intertwined with more thoughtful passages, combining a sense of optimism and serenity with a hint of wistfulness. Here the orchestra really came into its own, giving an energetic and powerful performance that was utterly compelling, and brought the evening to a satisfyingly upbeat conclusion. Wonderful.